The Mamur Zapt & the Return of the Carpet

by Michael Pearce

  “You don’t think it was a student quarrel, then?” said Mahmoud, who had asked for Owen’s company. Owen sensed that Mahmoud found Nuri difficult to handle. They were both Egyptians but different kinds of Egyptian. Nuri was of the old, feudal society, a grand seigneur in a system that had been corrupt for centuries, aware only of the levers of pleasure and power, experienced, cynical, blasé, interested, a little, in Mahmoud as a bright, up-and-coming new man, but ultimately dismissive of the powerless. For Mahmoud, Nuri represented everything that stood in the way of a New Egypt: conservatism, venality, a disillusion which cut efforts to -reform off at the knees before they even got started, power to block but not to do. There was, too, the social difference between them, which Mahmoud denied but could not help being sensitive to and which Nuri knew how to assert without lifting a finger. Mahmoud had not been at ease on their last visit and he was not at ease now. He needed Owen for assurance, or perhaps it was insurance.

  “No,” said Nuri, “I don’t think it was a student quarrel.”

  “You think it was directed at you?”

  “Of course.”

  He looked at them seriously. He was a different man today, more the elder statesman, less the old roué. Owen suspected, however, that Nuri was a man of many parts.

  “Through striking at my son they strike at me. And they strike,” he said somberly, “where I am most vulnerable.”

  Was this another part, Owen wondered: the loving father? Not entirely, he decided. Nuri genuinely seemed to have a soft spot for the boy; perhaps, in this male-oriented society, because he was a boy.

  “We are doing what we can,” said Mahmoud reassuringly.

  “Yes,” said Nuri sceptically. “And meanwhile?”

  Mahmoud caught the tone and flushed slightly. He and Nuri always seemed to rub each other up the wrong way. Owen thought he saw traces of woodenness beginning to appear in Mahmoud’s face. Nuri was exactly the sort of person he was likely to react against.

  “Did you have anything in mind?” Owen asked Nuri. He thought it best to intervene.

  “I hoped you would have something in mind,” said Nuri. “Haven’t you?”

  “That depends,” said Owen.

  “Really?” said Nuri. “On what?”

  Instead of answering, Owen said: “You could always get him a bodyguard.”

  “I have suggested that. He won’t have it. For some strange reason he confuses a bodyguard with a nursemaid.”

  Owen could just imagine the touchy Ahmed’s response.

  “It is difficult being a rich man’s son,” Mahmoud put in unexpectedly.

  Nuri looked at him quickly.

  “Yes,” he said, with a slight touch of surprise as if he had not expected Mahmoud to be so perceptive, or sympathetic. “Yes, I am inclined to forget that.”

  He turned to Owen.

  “Couldn’t you put a man on him?” he asked. “Unobtrusively, I mean?”

  Uncomfortable visions of Hamid danced before Owen’s eyes.

  “It wouldn’t necessarily help.”

  “If it’s a question of money—?” said Nuri.

  “It isn’t. It’s a question of men.”

  “As I said,” Nuri picked him up with a flash of his old self, “it’s a question of money.”

  Owen laughed, as he was expected to.

  “You might do better than me,” he said. “Still, I’ll think about it.”

  “At least he wasn’t badly hurt,” said Mahmoud.

  It was meant encouragingly, but again it came out awkwardly.

  Nuri looked at him.

  “This time,” he said.

  “Will there be a next time?” asked Owen. “If you’re right about it being a warning?”

  Nuri was amused.

  “Will I heed the warning, you mean?”

  “If you did, there might not be a next time.”

  “True,” said Nuri.

  “What exactly are you being warned to do or not to do?”

  This time Nuri laughed right out. He put his hand on Owen’s arm.

  “Not to meddle, mon cher.”

  “And are you meddling?”

  “Of course!” said Nuri, with all his old ebullience. “Of course!”

  ***

  Ahmed, however, was far from ebullient. He lay in a dark room, the shutters drawn, with a single sheet over him because of the heat and a Coptic nurse—female, and therefore borrowed from the European hospital—in attendance. He was lying on his side with his back turned towards them and remained like that when they came in.

  Mahmoud went round to the other side of the bed, drew up a chair and sat down facing him, like a friendly doctor, and began questioning him about what had happened. At first Ahmed replied only in faint monosyllables but gradually, as he became involved in the recitation of his wrongs, his voice took on greater strength and he began to reply at more length, sitting up in the bed so as to emphasize his points indignantly. The sheet slipped off his shoulders showing the purple bruises on his back.

  Owen had seen the doctor’s report. There was nothing broken, no damage apparent other than severe external bruising. And all the bruises were on his back and limbs. That was unlikely to be an accident, Owen thought. The men had been instructed to give him a good beating and no more. His face was untouched.

  But Ahmed’s back was not the only thing bruised. His pride was very much dented. He could hardly bear to talk about the blows. Indeed, Mahmoud found it very hard to get him to say anything precise about the incident at all. He denounced his friend for deserting him, complained about the slowness of the police in coming and their general lack of interest when they got there, and criticized the hospital for its reception of him and treatment afterwards.

  Mahmoud broke through the flood of rhetoric eventually: Did Ahmed think that the attack might be a warning?

  Ahmed stopped in mid-flight.

  “A warning?” he said. “A warning?” He seemed to freeze. “Why should it be a warning? Why do you ask me if it was a warning?” He regarded Mahmoud suspiciously.

  “I thought—” Mahmoud began. But Ahmed interrupted.

  “It is not a warning,” he said. “How could it be a warning? It was a criminal attack.” His voice rose. “A criminal attack! That is all!”

  “What was the point of the attack?”

  “To rob me!” Ahmed cried excitedly. “Yes, to rob me! They were thieves! Robbers!”

  Had they, in fact, stolen anything from him?

  “How do I know? No, they took nothing! Perhaps the police stopped them! My friend came back in time! How do I know? Why do you ask me these questions?” he shouted.

  The nurse gave Mahmoud a reproachful look and came forward. Ahmed threw himself back on the pillow and glared at them angrily.

  Mahmoud patiently began again.

  “He did think it was a warning, didn’t he?” said Owen, as he and Mahmoud walked back beneath the pepper trees.

  “He wasn’t sure,” said Mahmoud. “But the possibility was enough to scare him silly.”

  ***

  Someone else thought it was a warning, too. Shortly after Owen got back to his office he received a phone call from Ahmed’s half-sister, Zeinab.

  “Have you heard?” she asked. “My brother has been attacked.”

  “Yes,” said Owen. “I’ve just been to see him.”

  “Oh.” Then, after a moment: “He’s all right, isn’t he?”

  “He’ll be all right in a day or two.”

  “Good,” she said, relieved.

  Owen was quite pleased that she looked to him for reassurance.

  “It’s linked with this, isn’t it?” she said.

  He wondered what she meant by “this.” Her father or the grenades? Or both? The Nuri case was slipping into the background so far as
he was concerned. It would have to wait till after the Carpet.

  “I expect so,” he said.

  “Why would anyone want to attack Ahmed?” she asked. “Him of all people?”

  “Why of all people?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Because he’s not worth attacking, I suppose.”

  “Your father thought it might be intended as a warning.”

  He heard the quick intake of breath.

  “To him,” Owen said.

  There was a little pause. Then she said: “I thought it was a warning, too. To me.” She laughed a little shakily.

  “Because of last night? I doubt it. Unless they had advance knowledge. The attack on your brother happened at about the same time.”

  “That’s what I worked out,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t worry,” said Owen. “If there was a message, it was meant for your father.”

  “Thank you!” said Zeinab tartly. “That is very reassuring!”

  “Sorry!” Owen apologized. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “No.”

  He tried again.

  “Do you think your father was right? That it was a warning? Directed at him?”

  “He’s usually right in such matters,” she said.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve any idea,” said Owen casually, “what might have prompted such a warning?”

  “No. He’s always up to things.”

  “That’s more or less what he said. Only it’s not very helpful.”

  “It might be protection,” she offered.

  “That’s what we thought.”

  “He is always getting demands for money. Usually he knows who to pay and who not to. Perhaps he got it wrong this time.”

  “You wouldn’t know who’s been doing some asking recently, would you?”

  “No. Tademah?”

  “I’ve looked through some of the letters he’s received recently. Nothing from Tademah among them.”

  “Wasn’t there?” She sounded surprised. “I thought there was,” she said.

  “Not among the ones I was shown,” said Owen, remembering suddenly who had shown him them.

  “Well, I’m not sure,” she said, “but I thought there was. Perhaps it’s just that they were on my mind. But it would fit, though, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Owen. “It would fit.”

  ***

  The hammam, like all the old hammams, had a façade of red and white stone. With its complex panelling and its -fantastic arabesques it looked very like a small mosque, Dervish perhaps, except that its entrance was unusually narrow and had its door recesses painted green. If it had been a bath for women it would have had a towel hung across the sunken entrance.

  Owen ducked down and entered a pleasant, spacious room with several broad, marble-topped couches on which patrons were sitting in various stages of undress, already embarked on the main purpose of their visit, which was not to bathe but to chat. Owen went over to one of the couches and began to undress. An attendant brought him towels and clogs and stood by to receive his clothes and valuables. Owen wound one of the towels about his waist and the other around his head and went through into the next room.

  This was the first of the warm chambers and in the winter when the Cairenes thought it cold, bathers would undress there and not in the outer room. Today, however, it was empty and he went straight on into the main bath room.

  This was a large, square room with a marble-paved -depression in the middle in which there was a beautiful fountain of white marble. From it shot a high jet of very hot water, all around the depression, at the sides of the room, were low, marble-covered couches. The couches were set back in Moorish arches which pointed in to carry the central dome, and there were other, smaller domes directly above the couches with little glazed holes in them through which the light came.

  Several customers were already in the bath room, lying on the couches being scraped or massaged by the attendants, or else sitting with their feet in the central sunken area talking to their friends. One of the towel-swathed figures, Owen did not know which, was Mahmoud.

  When they had talked this over beforehand, they had wondered how to cover all the rooms. If any money changed hands it would almost certainly be in the outer room, either before or after bathing. It was more likely to be afterwards. The men would meet in the baths and leave together. As they dressed, the balance of the money would be handed over and then the parties would leave separately. Or so they thought. Whether they had guessed rightly remained to be seen.

  Owen and Mahmoud had agreed that it would be best for them to be in the bath room. They would try to spot their men, wait until they left and then go with them into the outer room. If they missed them it should not matter too much; the normal attendants in the outer room had been replaced for the day by Owen’s men.

  Owen went across to one of the marble couches and lay down. A huge Berberine attendant, naked except for a loin-cloth, approached and seized him. Without a word he began to work systematically over him, kneading the flesh and cracking the joints. Whenever he applied pressure he would give a little grunt. From all over the bath room came similar little grunts, both from the massagers and from the massaged. Mixed in with them was another sound which Owen could not at first identify. When the Berberine turned him over he saw that it came from the slab next to his. A man was having his feet rasped. If you always went barefoot or half-slippered your feet developed large, hard callosities. The rasps were made of Assiut clay and shaped like crocodiles, and as rough as breadcrumb graters.

  The Berberine removed the towel from Owen’s head and began to twist his ears. When they cracked, he transferred his attention to the neck, twisting the head first one way and then the other. Little drips of sweat fell from the Berberine on to Owen’s body. Everyone in the room was sweating profusely. The bath room was heated with hot air and the water which played from the fountain was only just below boiling point. In two of the corners of the room were further tanks of extremely hot water. Occasionally, helped by an attendant, a man would plunge into one of these.

  The Berberine finished with Owen and moved on to someone else. Owen lay for a few moments recovering. Then he went to a separate water-tank for cleansing. The attendant lathered him with soap using a large loofah and then washed it off. When the real work was done the attendant went away and Owen was allowed to play with the taps and spray himself with water which he considered to be at a more reasonable temperature.

  The attendant returned with four fresh towels. Owen wrapped himself in them and wandered back into the first of the warm chambers. It was cooler in there, though still too hot for the singing birds. Owen could hear them next door in the outer room. He chose a couch and sat down. An attendant brought him cushions and coffee and he made himself comfortable.

  From where he sat—he had chosen the spot deliberately—he had a good view into the bathroom. Mahmoud, he knew, was still in there. Between them they would cover the two rooms.

  He sipped his coffee and waited.

  Hamid had given descriptions of the men but that was not what helped him to spot them. Two brawny men wandered in a lost fashion through the warm chamber, came to the doorway of the bath room and stood sheepishly, obviously never having been in the place before. One of them muttered something to the other and they walked to the far side of the sunken area and sat down with their feet in the water and their backs to one of the slabs.

  Two only of the men had come, one to watch the other, Owen supposed. The others would be waiting outside. And outside Georgiades would be waiting, too, along with Hamid and a few other men.

  The man they had come to meet did not appear for some time. Owen would have worried, had he not seen the men worrying, too.

  Eventually he appeared. His head was screened in towels and at first when he came in he did not go an
ywhere near them. But then, watching from under his own towel, Owen saw him make his way as if by chance across to them and sit down beside them. He spoke to them. The men’s faces cleared and they sat waiting docilely while he went over to the water-tank for his soaping and washing.

  As the attendant removed the towels Owen had a good look at the man.

  It was Fakhri! Fakhri, the so-helpful editor! Fakhri, who had started the whole thing with that first eyewitness report!

  He could not believe it! He must have made a mistake! It just could not be.

  But then the man turned his face and Owen could see so clearly that there was no possibility of error. It was indeed Fakhri.

  Fakhri completed his washing, took his towels and then sauntered round the bath room chatting to various other patrons. Eventually, as if by accident, he came to rest near the two men.

  Owen’s mind was whirling. The various pieces of the pattern that he had detected and fitted so cleverly together suddenly sprang apart, jumped into the air, somersaulted and crashed down all over the place. For a moment or two all he could do was contemplate the ruins. Then, one by one, -unbidden, the pieces rose up again in his mind and each one, seen in a new light, was totally transformed. Things taken for granted moved round before his eyes and pointed in a completely new direction. Things new fitted in with a click. And underneath, slowly, realization dawned.

  He had been duped. From the start he had been fooled. From the very moment Fakhri had walked into the office with the testimony which had set everything in motion. How much of that original testimony was true, Owen wondered now. Probably enough to confuse! And then the solicitous inquiries into Nuri’s health at the café! And, also in that conversation at the café, now he came to think about it, there were other things as well, deliberately planted no doubt. It almost made Owen groan to think of them. Denshawai, Nuri’s past. And then Ahmed! It was Fakhri who had directed him to that number of al Liwa, the one that had led on to the Nationalist meeting and Ahmed’s connection with the Nationalists, and his presence at the village, and his possible links with Mustafa. He had seen things the way Fakhri had meant him to see them. And even when Fakhri had been taken by surprise, as when Owen had turned up unexpectedly at his party, he had turned it to his advantage!