The Mamur Zapt and the return of the Carpet mz-1

by Michael Pearce

  Owen said he had just been to the opera. They asked him how it compared with opera in Europe. He was obliged to admit that the only opera he had seen had been in Egypt. Two of the journalists had seen opera in Paris. They thought Cairo opera provincial.

  The conversation ran on merrily. Some time later Owen glanced at his watch. It was well past two. Opera finished late in Cairo; parties started even later, evidently.

  The thought occurred to one or two of the others and they rose to go. Owen got up, too, and began to say his farewells. His acquaintances were aghast that he should be leaving them so early. They insisted that he came to the party with them.

  Owen was taking this to be mere Arab politeness when the playwright linked his arm in Owen’s and began to urge him determinedly along the street.

  “A little while,” he coaxed, “just a little, little while.”

  “We want you to meet our friends,” they said.

  The house was a traditional Mameluke house. It went up in tiers. The first tier was just a high blank wall with a decorated archway entrance. Above this a row of corbels allowed the first floor to project a couple of feet over the street, in the manner of sixteenth-century houses in England. And above this again a triple row of oriels carried out into the street a further two feet. There was no glass, of course, but all the windows were heavily screened with fine traditional woodwork.

  Through the archway was a courtyard with a fountain and some people sitting round it. They belonged to the party, but most of the guests were inside, in a mandar’ah, or reception room, opening off the courtyard.

  The mandar’ah had a sunken marble floor paved with black and white marble and little pieces of fine red tile. In the centre of the floor was a fountain playing into a small shallow pool lined with coloured marbles like the floor.

  A number of people stood about the room in groups, talking. Other groups reclined on large, fat, multi-coloured, leather cushions. Some had Western-style drinks in their hand. Quite a few were drinking coffee. All were talking.

  At the far end of the room was a dais with large cushions. This was where the host normally sat, along with his most honoured guests. There was a group on it now, sprawled about on the cushions, all talking animatedly.

  Two of Owen’s acquaintances went off to find their host. They returned leading him triumphantly.

  He was Fakhri.

  He recovered at once, grasped Owen’s hand in both his own and embraced him.

  “It would take too long to explain,” said Owen.

  However, his friends were determined to explain, and Fakhri got the general picture.

  “But we have met already!”

  “You have?”

  Fakhri bore Owen away.

  “Whisky?” he said. “Or coffee?”

  “I would say coffee but I have had so much already-”

  “Whisky, then. For me also. After such surprises-”

  “Sorry,” said Owen.

  “Such nice surprises. I take it you are not on duty?”

  “Far from it,” said Owen, with conviction.

  “Then enjoy your evening. Come! I will introduce you-”

  But another group of guests arrived, who solicited Fakhri’s attention. Owen went off to find his acquaintances. The playwright was in a little group about the fountain. Owen started across to join him.

  The party was Western-style. That is, women were present. There were Syrians, Jews, Armenians, Greeks, Tripolitans and Levantines generally; there were scarcely any Egyptians. None were unattached. That would have been flouting convention too far.

  One of them Owen recognized. It was the girl he had noticed at Nuri’s. She looked up and caught his eye.

  “Why,” she said, smiling, “le Mamur Zapt. ”

  Fakhri appeared, hot and bothered from greeting three lots of guests simultaneously.

  “You know each other?” he said. “Captain Carwall-” he mumbled the word “-Owen.”

  “What?” said the girl.

  “Owen.”

  “I know,” said the girl. “Le Mamur Zapt. ”

  Fakhri looked at Owen a little anxiously.

  “Pas ce soir, ” said Owen.

  “Ah!” said the girl. “You are Mamur Zapt only sometimes. That is imaginative.” She turned to Fakhri. “Don’t you think,” she asked, “that it is one of the weaknesses of the British that they can usually be only themselves?”

  “It is one of their strengths,” said Fakhri. “They never doubt that they are right.”

  “While we doubt all the time. Perhaps. But it is a weakness, too. The world is not so simple.”

  “Cairo is not so simple, either,” said Fakhri, with a sidelong glance at Owen.

  He slipped off to greet some new arrivals.

  “I saw you the other day at Nuri’s,” said Owen.

  “My father,” said the girl.

  “Nuri is your father?”

  “Oui. ’’

  He considered her. Something in the face, perhaps? A strong face, not a pretty one. But the figure was willowy, unlike Nuri’s barrel-like one.

  “You must take after your mother.”

  “In more ways than one.”

  “How is she?” asked Owen. “The attack on your father must have been a great shock.”

  “She is dead.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  The girl looked out into the courtyard where the fountain caught the moonlight.

  “I think they loved each other,” she said suddenly. “They never married, of course. She wouldn’t go in his harem.”

  Seeing that Owen was trying to work it out, she said: “My mother was Firdus.”

  She saw he was still puzzled.

  “The courtesan. You wouldn’t know, but she was famous.”

  “And obviously beautiful.”

  The girl regarded him sceptically.

  “She was, as a matter of fact. But that is not one of the things I have inherited from her.”

  “I don’t know,” said Owen. “Is Ahmed your brother?” he asked. “Half-brother. His mother was a woman in the harem.”

  “We met him at your father’s that day.”

  “C’est un vrai imbecile, celui-la, ” said the girl dismissively.

  “He doesn’t like the British.”

  “You can’t expect originality from him.”

  Owen laughed.

  “He doesn’t seem to care greatly for your father, either,” he said. “Naturally,” said the girl. “None of us do. We are angry for our mothers.”

  “You are,” said Owen. “Is Ahmed?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Ahmed is just angry,” she said. Then she looked hard at him.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Interested,” said Owen.

  “Surely you don’t think-” She began to laugh. “It’s too ridiculous,” she said.

  “Is it?”

  “If you knew Ahmed-” She broke off. “Why,” she said, “you sound just like the Mamur Zapt.”

  And turned on her heel and walked away.

  Owen rejoined the group around the playwright. They were talking now about the way in which old parts of Cairo were being torn down to make way for new buildings in the European style. Was this progress or was it deterioration? The debate continued happily and vehemently.

  A little later in the evening, or morning, Fakhri detached him.

  “I would like you to meet one of my colleagues,” he said, and led Owen over to a little group in one corner. Two earnest young men were addressing a somewhat gloomy middle-aged man, who looked up with relief when he saw Fakhri approaching.

  “Mon cher!” he said.

  They shook hands and embraced.

  “I have been here all night and not had a word with you!”

  “It was good of you to come,” said Fakhri. “Have you put it to bed?”

  The man glanced at his watch.

  “The first copies will be coming off i
n an hour,” he said. “I shall have to go soon.”

  “Not before you have had some more coffee,” said Fakhri, and clapped his hands.

  A splendid suffragi, or waiter, in a spotless white gown and a red sash around his middle appeared at once with a coffee-pot.

  “You need it to keep awake,” said Fakhri. “Anyway, why do you have to be there? Can’t they manage without you?”

  “No,” said the man gloomily. “It will all be wrongly set, the columns won’t be straight and some of it is bound to be transposed.” “They used to be all right," said Fakhri. “Well, fairly all right.” “They were always hopeless,” said the man, “and now they’re worse.”

  “Daouad always sees the gloomy side of things,” Fakhri said to Owen. “However, it is true that things are not easy for him.”

  “Not easy,” said Daouad, roused. “I’ll say they’re not easy! You don’t know what problems are!” he said to Fakhri.

  He turned to Owen.

  “There’s no direction! Not since Kamil died. They’re all at each other’s throats, el Gazzari, Jemal, Yussuf, Abdul Murr. And I’m in the middle! If I print something that Jemal likes, el Gazzari won’t have it. If I put in one of Gazzari’s huge sermons, Jemal comes to me and says it has to go or his people won’t distribute it.”

  He gulped his coffee.

  “That’s why I have to be there,” he said to Fakhri. “It was all right when I left the office but who knows what they’ve done since? They’ll have pulled articles out, pushed articles in-”

  Fakhri patted him on the shoulder. “Only a man like you could cope,” he said,

  Owen knew now why Fakhri had introduced him. Daouad was the editor of a! Liwa

  ‘ Working to so many people is impossible,” he said sympathetically. “It is,” Daouad agreed fervently.

  “And they are so extreme! They won’t compromise at all.”

  “Not one bit,” agreed Daouad.

  “I don’t know how you manage. Is there any sign of someone getting control?”

  “That might be worse,” said Daouad gloomily. “If it’s el Gazzari, I couldn’t go on. I can’t even talk to him. And Jemal wouldn’t be much better. They never listen to me!” he complained to Fakhri.

  “They couldn’t do without you,” said Fakhri.

  “What about Abdul Murr?” he asked.

  “He’s got more sense,” Daouad conceded. “I could work with him.”

  “I would have thought there was a chance of Abdul Murr,” said Fakhri. “In the end both Jemal and el Gazzari must see that things can’t go on like this. Someone has to be in charge. Abdul Murr is a reasonable man. They can both work with him, even if they can’t work with each other.”

  “He’s too moderate for both of them.”

  “It may have to come to that,” Fakhri insisted. “There has to be compromise. Even they must see that!”

  “They might see it,” said Daouad, “but others won’t.”

  “If they see it, the others will have to.”

  Daouad pursed his lips. “There are others who are even more difficult,” he said. “Compared with them, el Gazzari and Jemal are reason itself.”

  “Then,” said Fakhri, “ you certainly do have problems.”

  “Fakhri doesn’t really care if I have problems,” Daouad said to Owen. “He’s on the other side.” “There are lots of other sides,” said Fakhri. His cheeks crinkled with laughter. “Anyway,” he said, “of course I am! I like to hear of your problems. It m^kes me forget mine for a little.”

  “How I envy you. Fakhri,” said Daouad. “There’s only one boss in your place and that’s you. In my place there are ten bosses and none of them is me.”

  “I can’t believe there’s anyone worse than Jemal and el Gazzari,” said Owen.

  “Oh, there is!” said Daouad with great conviction.

  “There can’t be!” said Owen. “Who?”

  Daouad started to speak, then stopped.

  “There just are,” he said.

  Owen shook his head, affecting disbelief.

  “Some of el Gazzari’s factions are impossible,” Fakhri said to Owen. “And some of Jemal’s,” said Daouad.

  Fakhri chuckled. “And Daouad is not going to tell us which of them he’s thinking of!”

  “That’s right,” said Daouad. “I’m not.”

  “I promise I won’t print what you say,” said Fakhri.

  “It’s not that that worries me,” said Daouad darkly.

  “What is it that worries you?” asked Owen.

  Daouad looked at his watch.

  "I’ve got to go,” he said.

  “At any rate,” said Fakhri, “there’s one worry that I’ve got and you haven’t.”

  “What’s that?” asked Daouad. ' v

  “Money,” said Fakhri.

  “Oh, money,” said Daouad, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Just so,” said Fakhri. “But if you’re independent like me-”

  “I am independent,” muttered Daouad touchily.

  “-you’ve always got to be thinking about it. One big fine would close me down.”

  “They can close you down without doing that,” said Daouad. They talked for a little while longer about the difficulties of the censorship. Owen knew he was being got at, but he did not mind. Fakhri was being very helpful. He had certainly earned something. The question was, what did he want? At one point Owen had thought he was angling for a bribe. That could be arranged. But perhaps Fakhri had in mind something less directly financial: greater tolerance if he stepped over the line, perhaps. That, too, was possible.

  Daouad looked at his watch again. He shook hands with Owen and

  Fakhri escorted him to the door. Owen wondered whether he could decently leave himself.

  A voice behind him said: “No arts pages in al Liwa. ”

  It was one of his friends from earlier in the evening.

  “A pity,” said Owen, “especially from your point of view.”

  “It would be a better paper if it did have them. It’s too one-track at the moment. Boring.”

  “That’s because Daouad is boring,” said another of the earlier party, joining them.

  “It’s not just that. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t.”

  “El Gazzari?” hazarded Owen.

  The other two exchanged grimaces.

  “Not that Jemal’s any better,” one of them said.

  “A pity,” said Owen again. “Fakhri says they've got plenty of money.”

  “He would. He’s envious.”

  “Where do they get it from?” Owen asked. “Party funds?” “Ah-ha.” One of the young men laid a finger along his nose and winked. The other called to a group standing next to them. “Zeinab!” A girl turned round. It was the one Owen had spoken to earlier. “What is it?” she said, coming across to them.

  “We want to know where al Liwa gets its money from.”

  “Why ask me?”

  “We thought Raoul might know.”

  “Then ask him,” she said, and walked off.

  A tall, distinguished-looking Syrian with silvery-grey hair came over.

  “What’s the matter?” he said.

  “We thought you could help us,” they said. “We want to know where al Liwa gets its money from.”

  The Syrian looked annoyed. “Why should I know?”

  “You’re so friendly with al Liwa. ”

  “I’m friendly with everybody,” the Syrian said.

  “I wish you were friendly with Fakhri,” one of the young men said. “Then I could have a bigger column.”

  “There’s no money in newspapers,” the Syrian said.

  “Except what people put into them,” one of the young men said. The Syrian looked at him steadily. “I don’t put money into papers,” he said. “I stick to business.”

  He rejoined the people he had been talking to previously. A little later, Owen saw him leaving, with the girl.

  CHAPTER 6

  Understand
ably, Owen got into the office late the next day. Nikos and Georgiades were waiting for him.

  Nikos cocked an eyebrow.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Georgiades.

  “Fragile,” said Owen.

  “Serve you right,” said Nikos vindictively. He had not forgiven Owen the business about the memo.

  Georgiades clucked his tongue disapprovingly at Nikos and led Owen into his office.

  “Coffee!” he shouted to Yussuf. “Coffee quickly! The man is dying!”

  Yussuf scuttled into the room and poured out a large mug of coffee. He watched sympathetically as Owen did his best to wrap himself round it: cradling it in his hands and letting the warmth move up his arms, sucking in the aroma and then taking a sip and letting it transform itself into a glow in the pit of his stomach.

  Georgiades took some, too; in case it was catching, he informed Yussuf.

  Owen had not really drunk much the night before. One seldom did at Egyptian parties, even Europeanized ones. However, he had not left Fakhri’s until it had gone four and had had only three hours’ sleep.

  He put the mug back on his desk and motioned to Georgiades to draw up his usual chair.

  “OK,” he said. “Tell me about Ahmed, then.”

  “Nineteen,” said Georgiades, “a student. Second year at the law school. Not very good at his studies. A certain native wit, his teachers think, but inconsistent. Not very well organized. His work doesn’t get done. Too many distractions.”

  “Like?”

  “Politics. Spends too much time hanging around Nationalist headquarters. Attends meetings. Distributes leaflets.” “Speaks?”

  “No. Gets tied up. His emotion outruns his thinking.”

  “Heart’s in the right place but head isn’t.”

  “That’s the sort of thing.”

  “And how did he come to fall into these bad habits?”

  “Before he went to law school his father sent him to Turkey for six months. The idea was for him to make contacts which might be useful to him later. Business, a bit, but mostly the kind of contacts that would help him with the Khedive. Nuri’s good at that kind of lobbying. Anyway, apparently Ahmed didn’t spend much time talking to the kind of people Nuri wanted him to talk to. Instead, he fell in with a group of Young Turks-officers in the Army, stationed at Stamboul. He got to talking politics with them. They were very keen on getting some change in things. Too keen. They got put down by the Secret Police and Ahmed had to leave the country in a hurry. Nuri wasn’t very pleased.”