The Mamur Zapt & the Return of the Carpet

by Michael Pearce

  “’Assan is the only name I can think of, sir.”

  “Sure?”

  The blue eyes met his blandly.

  “Yes, sir. Afraid so, sir.”

  “I’m not really interested in your case,” said Owen. “I’m interested in another. And if I got a name, that could be really helpful.”

  “I’d like to help, sir,” said the man. “But ’Assan is the only name I can think of.”

  “Go on thinking,” said Owen, “and let me know if another name comes into your head.”

  He turned through the papers in the file.

  “After all,” he said casually, without looking up, “it’s only a Gyppy.”

  He went on turning through the papers. No reply came. He had not really expected one.

  He took a card from his pocket.

  “If you want to get in touch with me,” he said, “later—and, remember, one word will do—that’s where you’ll find me.”

  The man took the card and fingered it gingerly.

  “Mamur Zapt,” he said, stumbling a little. He raised his head. “What’s that, sir? Civilian?”

  “No,” said Owen. “Special.”

  “Sorry, sir. No offence.”

  After a moment he said: “’Course, it couldn’t be, you being in uniform. It was just that ‘Mamur’ bit.”

  Owen closed the file and sat back. He had done what he could. Whether the seed he had planted would bear fruit remained to be seen.

  “A mamur is just a district officer,” he said. “Not the same thing at all.”

  “Of course not, sir.”

  Judging that the interrogation was over he became relaxed, even garrulous.

  “I know, sir. I ran into one of them once, at Ismailia. We’d gone off for the day, a few of us. Filled a boat with bottles of beer and set out along the coast. We come to this place, and the bloody boatman hops over the side. We thought he was just doing something to do with the boat, but the bugger never came back. We just sat there, waiting and drinking. We’d had a few already by this time. Anyway, after a bit we runs out of bottles so we gets out of the boat to go looking for some more when we runs into this mamur. One of my mates hits him, but we’re all so bloody pissed by then we can’t really hit anyone, and suddenly they’re all around us and we’re in the local caracol.”

  Owen laughed.

  The man nodded in acknowledgement and pulled a face.

  “Christ!” he said. “That was something, I can tell you. A real hole. The place was stuffed full of dirty Arabs, about twenty of them in a space that would do eight, and then us as well. The pong! Jesus! Shit everywhere. You were standing in it. Pitch black. No bloody windows, just a wooden grating for a door. No air. Hot as hell. All them bodies packed together. Christ! I’ve been in some rough places, but that scared the shit out of me. We were in there for a day and half. Bloody Military didn’t get there till the next morning. And then, do you know what they did? Those bastards just came and looked at us through the grating and went away laughing! Didn’t come back till they’d had a drink. “That’ll bloody teach you!” they said. It did too, and all. Wouldn’t want to go through that again.”

  ***

  The café stood at the corner of the Ataba el Khadra, just at the point where Muski Street, coming up from the old quarter, emerged on the squares and gardens of the European part of Cairo.

  Owen had chosen a table out on the pavement, from where he could see both down Muski Street, with its open-fronted shops and goods spilling out into the road, and across the Ataba.

  At this time in the evening the Ataba was lit by scores of lamps, which hung from the trees, from the railings, from shop-signs and from house-fronts, even, incongruously, from the street-lights themselves. In their soft light, round the edges of the square, the donkey-boys and cab-men gambled, drank tea and talked, forming little conversation groups which drew in passers-by and drove pedestrians into the middle of the Place, where they competed with the arabeahs and buses and trams and carts and camels and donkeys and brought traffic to a standstill.

  Everywhere, even out in the middle of the thoroughfare, were street-stalls: stalls for nougat, for Turkish delight, for Arab sugar, for small cucumbers and oranges, for spectacles, leather boots and slippers, for cheap turquoises, for roses, for carnations, for Sudanese beads made in England, for sandalwood workboxes and Smyrna figs, for tea, for coffee, for the chestnuts being roasted around the foot of the trees.

  And everywhere, too, were people. The women, in the shapeless dark gowns and black veils, were going home. But the men were appearing in all their finery to stroll around the streets and sit in the cafés. Here and there were desert Arabs in beautiful robes of spotless white and black, and a rather larger number of blue-gowned country Arabs from Der el Bahari. But for the most part the men were dressed in European style, apart from their handsome tarbooshes. All, however, had magnificent boots, which the shoe-brown boys fought to shine whenever an owner sat down in a café.

  Owen enjoyed it. He lived alone, and in the evening, when he was not at the club or at the opera, he would often sit in a café. When he had first come to Egypt he had done it deliberately, often going to a café with his Arabic teacher after a lesson to drink coffee and to talk. His teacher, the Aalim Aziz, had instructed him in far more than the language during those civilized discussions of all aspects of the Arab past and present, discussions which continued late into the night and usually finished with everyone in the café involved.

  In his first six months in Egypt Owen had gone to Aziz for instruction every day; and afterwards, when by usual European standards he spoke the language well, he would still meet him at least twice a week, not so much now for formal instruction as to continue discussion with one who had become a friend. Even now, when his work tended to isolate him, he still met Aziz regularly.

  Having acquired the taste for café society, Owen kept it. Indeed, it was one of the things that made him prefer Egypt to India. Unlike many English Arabists, he was a man of the city rather than the desert. It was common among the British in Egypt to regard the urban Egyptian as a corrupted, degenerate version of the more sympathetic traditional Bedouin. Owen, on the other hand, was more at home with the young, educated, urban Egyptian, with people like Mahmoud.

  He was waiting for Mahmoud now. After their experience that morning at the barracks, he had been anxious to contact Mahmoud at once to apologize. But when he had rung up Mahmoud to suggest a meeting he had found him off-hand, unwilling. Owen had pressed, however, and in the end, reluctantly, the Egyptian had agreed.

  They had arranged to meet in the café that evening. Instinctively Owen felt that to be better. If they had met at the Bab el Khalk or at the Parquet he had a feeling that Mahmoud would have retreated into his shell. In the more natural -atmosphere of the café they might do better.

  But when Mahmoud arrived, the strategy did not seem to work. Owen apologized for the morning. Mahmoud brushed it aside. It was nothing, he said. How had the interview with the sergeant gone? When Owen told him, he brushed that aside, too. He hadn’t really expected anything different. Owen had done what he could, and he, Mahmoud, was grateful. The man was coming out on Thursday and couldn’t really be expected to talk. It was not Owen’s fault.

  Which was all very well, but Owen knew that things weren’t right. When they had first met, and throughout the whole of the day they had spent together, they had got on unusually well. Owen had taken an immediate liking to the Egyptian and he felt that Mahmoud had taken a liking to him. He had found himself responding sympathetically to the Egyptian and understanding what he was after without it needing to be spelt out, and he had felt that Mahmoud was reading him in the same way. This evening, though, there was none of that. Mahmoud was unfailingly courteous, but something was missing. The outgoing friendliness that had characterized him previously seemed to have gone.

  I
n the time that he had been in Egypt Owen had got used to the way in which Arab relationships varied in intensity. Arabs seemed to blow hot and blow cold. They invested their relationships with more emotion than did the stolid English and so their relationships were more volatile. Owen could understand this; perhaps, he told himself wryly, because the Welsh were not altogether dissimilar. Perhaps, more particularly, his own intuitive nature made him especially sensitive to such things.

  In an effort to put Mahmoud more at ease, he switched into Arabic. Mahmoud switched back into English.

  The conversation was at the level of exchanging common-places. Owen knew that when Mahmoud had finished his coffee he would go.

  Some shoe-boys were larking about near their table. One of them threw a brush at another. The brush missed and fell under the table. The boy scurried to retrieve it and almost upset their coffee. They grabbed at the table together and cursed simultaneously. The boy fled laughing, chased by a furious waiter. Owen smiled, and thought he saw an answering flicker on Mahmoud’s face.

  Deliberately he moved his chair round so that he sat beside Mahmoud, closer to him. Arab conventions of personal territory were different from European ones. What to an Englishman seemed keeping a proper distance, to an Arab seemed cold and unfriendly.

  “Your day has been hard?” he asked sympathetically.

  At last he got a real response.

  Mahmoud looked round at him.

  “Not as hard as yours yesterday,” he said bitterly. “Although perhaps you did not find it so.”

  Owen knew that Mahmoud was referring to the students.

  The remark surprised him. He knew, of course, that this kind of political policing was resented by Egyptians, but had thought that as a member of the Parquet Mahmoud must have come to terms with it. He wondered suddenly what Mahmoud’s own political position was. A bright young Parquet lawyer on the rise might well have political ambitions; and if he did, they might well be on the Nationalist side.

  “I was not involved directly,” he said slowly, “although of course I knew of it.”

  “Perhaps I should not have spoken,” said Mahmoud.

  “No, that’s all right,” said Owen. He smiled. “It’s just that I am trying to think of an answer.”

  He pondered for a moment and then decided to go for honesty.

  “The answer is,” he said, “that I did not find it hard. It was regrettable, certainly, but a necessity. Given the situation in Egypt. Of course, you may not want to grant the situation. I would understand that.”

  A little to his surprise, Mahmoud seemed to find the answer satisfactory. He relaxed visibly and waved to the waiter for more coffee.

  “I appreciate your answer,” he said. “And in case you’re wondering, let me tell you I personally am not a revolutionary. Nationalist, yes, reforming, even radical, yes; but not a revolutionary. I would like the British out. But meanwhile…” He sighed. “Meanwhile, for you and for me, there are necessities.”

  He paused while the waiter filled their cups.

  “However,” he said, “I must tell you I would not want to grant the situation.”

  “That,” said Owen, “I can quite understand.”

  He brooded a little.

  “I can understand,” he said presently, “a bit at any rate, because I myself am not English.”

  “Not English?” said Mahmoud, astonished.

  “Welsh.”

  “Welsh? Pays Galles?”

  Owen nodded.

  “I have never met anyone from Wales before,” said Mahmoud.

  “You probably wouldn’t know if you had. They’re very like Englishmen. Smaller, darker. Not enough to stand out. But there is a difference. In the part of Wales I come from,” said Owen, “most people do not speak English.”

  “Vraiment?”

  Mahmoud hesitated.

  “But—you speak English very well. How—?”

  “We spoke both Welsh and English at home,” said Owen. “My father normally spoke English. He wanted me to grow up to be an Englishman. My mother spoke Welsh.”

  “And she wanted you to grow up to be a Welshman?” asked Mahmoud.

  “Probably,” said Owen, laughing. “She was hopelessly romantic. She wanted Wales to be an independent country again.”

  “And that seems romantic to you?”

  “In the case of Wales, yes.”

  Mahmoud considered.

  “In the case of Egypt, too,” he said at length. “Romantic. Definitely romantic.”

  ***

  Their rapport quite restored, they continued happily drinking coffee.

  At the other end of the café a party broke up with the usual prolonged Arabic farewells. Most of the party went off together across the square, but one of them made his way along the pavement in their direction, skirting the gambling and waving aside the shoe-boys. As he passed their table his eye caught Owen’s. It was Fakhri.

  He stopped in his tracks.

  “The Mamur Zapt?” he cried. “And—” taking in Mahmoud— “the Parquet? Together? There must have been a revolution! And no one has told me!”

  “Come and join us,” Owen invited, “and we’ll tell you.”

  Fakhri dropped into a chair.

  “I don’t want to interrupt you,” he said, “unless you’re talking business.”

  “Business and pleasure. Mostly pleasure.”

  “Ah,” said Fakhri, waving a hand back at the dispersed party. “Like me. Pleasure and business. Mostly business.”

  “What is your business?” asked Owen curiously.

  “He has not heard,” said Fakhri sorrowfully.

  “Fakhri Bey is a distinguished editor,” said Mahmoud.

  “Oh, that Fakhri!” said Owen, whose own business was to know the political press. “My apologies. I read your editorials with pleasure. Sometimes.”

  “I am afraid you may not read tomorrow’s with pleasure,” said Fakhri.

  “The students?” Owen shrugged.

  “Quite so,” said Fakhri. “Let us forget about them.”

  He and Owen both waved for more coffee simultaneously.

  “At least what you say,” said Owen, “will be less predictable than what I read in al Liwa.”

  Fakhri made a face.

  “They say everything at the top of their voice,” he said. “There is no light and shade.”

  “What’s happening at al Liwa,” asked Owen, “now that Mustafa Kamil has died?”

  Mustafa Kamil, the brilliant young politician who had built up the National Party virtually from scratch, had died a month or two previously, from a heart attack.

  “They have not sorted themselves out yet. All the top posts keep changing, the editorship among them.”

  “The complexion of the paper doesn’t, though,” said Owen.

  “It could. It depends on who wins control of the party. If it’s el Gazzari it will become very religious. Crazily so. If it’s Jemal it will go in for heavy doses of revolutionary theory.”

  Owen sighed. “Neither will make it more readable,” he said. “They lack your touch.”

  Fakhri tried not to look pleased.

  “See how expertly he works,” he said to Mahmoud. “This is how the Mamur Zapt gets the press eating out of his hand.”

  “The Egyptian press,” said Owen, “is the most independent in the world. Unfortunately.”

  They all laughed.

  A boy went past sprinkling water to keep down the dust. Fakhri pulled his legs back hurriedly. For a little while there was the lovely, distinctive smell of wet sand.

  “How is Nuri Pasha?” asked Fakhri. “I called on him two days ago to express my sympathy but his Berberine told me that he was talking to you.”

  “He is well,” said Mahmoud.

  “Praise be to
God!” said Fakhri automatically.

  He hesitated.

  “And how are you getting on—?” He broke off. “Perhaps I shouldn’t ask!”

  His laugh allowed the brush-off; but he cocked his head attentively, inviting information.

  Owen decided to play.

  “We hold the man, of course,” he said.

  “Ah, yes, but—”

  “Those behind?”

  Fakhri nodded.

  “Not yet.”

  Fakhri affected, or showed, disappointment.

  Owen decided to try a move of his own.

  “The attempt did not come as a surprise to you,” he said, more as a statement than a question.

  “No,” said Fakhri. “It did not.”

  “Denshawai?”

  “Of course.”

  “Just Denshawai?”

  Fakhri looked surprised.

  “So far as I know,” he said.

  “The reason why I ask,” said Owen, “is that he doesn’t seem to have been directly involved.”

  “More directly than he likes to pretend now,” said Fakhri.

  “OK. But surely a minor figure?”

  “The civil servant responsible was only a minor figure and he was the first to be shot.”

  “I always thought that was in the heat of the moment when the sentences were first announced,” said Owen. Then, after a pause: “You said ‘first’?”

  “Yes,” said Fakhri, “I did.”

  “You think there are more to come?”

  “All Cairo,” said Fakhri, “thinks there are more to come.”

  He glanced at his watch.

  “I really must go,” he said, getting to his feet. “I have to see the first copy as it comes off the press.”

  “I shall read it tomorrow with interest,” said Owen.

  “If I were you,” said Fakhri, “I would read tomorrow’s al Liwa also. I think you will find that full of interest, too.”

  Chapter Five

  When Nikos arrived in the office the next morning he found Owen already there, finishing a memo. It read:

  The Mamur Zapt has received unconfirmed -reports of a disturbing increase in the number of thefts from military installations in recent months. These include thefts of guns, ammunition and other equipment which could be used for offensive purposes. Clearly there could be serious implications for civil security if these got into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, such thefts are treated purely as an internal matter by Military Security and not reported to the Mamur Zapt, with the result that he has been unable to investigate the possibility of links with known terrorist organizations or establish whether a pattern is emerging. No analysis has been made by Military Security. In view of the possible threat to civil order and the likelihood that senior civil and military personnel could be at risk, it is recommended that: