The Point in the Market

by Michael Pearce

  He could feel the heat even before he got there. It almost seemed to singe his hair. The end of the passageway was blocked, too, by people but beyond them he could see the house.

  The whole front of it was blackened and the wooden, box-like meshrebiya windows had burned away and dropped out, leaving gaping holes. Inside he could see tongues of flame. There was a sudden roar and they leaped up.

  The front of the house seemed to tremble and the people in the street cried out. The street was packed solid.

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ shouted Owen. ‘Get away!’

  He shouted again in Arabic. No one heard him. The roar of the fire was too loud.

  He tried to force his way through the people standing at the end of the passage but couldn’t.

  ‘Make way! Make way!’ he shouted, but no one moved or, perhaps could move.

  He shouted again, impatiently.

  And then an arm reached out of the darkness and grabbed him.

  ‘Effendi! This way!’

  ‘Selim—’

  It was one of the constables from the Bab-el-Khalk. There was a door there and he was pulling Owen through.

  ‘Follow me, Effendi!’

  He ran up some stairs. The doors off it were open and the rooms were lit with the same lurid red light that he had noticed earlier. There were people in them clustered up against the windows.

  Selim went on past them and they came out on to the roof into the usual roof-top garden with its flowers and its jasmine and its runner beans. There were people here, too, standing looking at the house opposite.

  Down in the street he could see McPhee. He had some constables with him and they were trying to push the crowd back away from the house and out of the street altogether. But, of course, it was difficult, with the people packed in so tightly behind them.

  The flames flickered again and the whole house seemed to be quivering. He could see now that there were jets of water playing on the flames and, following them down, he could see the firemen, in their helmets looking oddly English.

  ‘Can I get down to them?’ he asked Selim.

  Selim look doubtful.

  ‘The floor above—’

  ‘That’ll do.’

  It was the harem room. There was a flutter as he went in.

  He heard Selim mutter: ‘This is the life!’

  The women were standing in the huge box window looking out through the lattice work. The wood was hot to the touch. He found a place where he could put his head through, and leaned out.

  ‘McPhee!’ he shouted. ‘The horses! Use the horses!’

  McPhee didn’t hear him at first, then didn’t understand. But then he nodded and ran to the fire engines. He had difficulty in making clear what he wanted but then one of the men, a driver, probably, unfastened the horses and began to lead them towards the crowd. The constables fell in alongside them.

  The crowd fell back, but only by a yard. The constables began to press in on them again. The driver was having difficulty keeping the horses’ heads to the crowd. The people wanted to withdraw but couldn’t.

  The fire roared again and this time some pieces fell off from one of the upper storeys. One of the firemen stopped and gazed at them, fascinated. The pieces fell into the crowd and someone cried out.

  The crowd surged but then swayed back to where it had been. People began to scream.

  Then, above the uproar, he heard someone shouting commands. It was a man he had not noticed before, standing beside the firemen, dressed like them in fireman’s uniform but with a fezz on his head instead of a helmet. One of the jets came off the building and began to play on the people at the end of the street.

  They began to retreat. The jet followed them. Foot by foot they were forced back. The people already in front of the house began to move into the space vacated. They in turn were subjected to the jet and, gradually, little by little, the street in front of the burning building was cleared.

  ***

  Eventually, the fire was brought under control. The hose pipes were turned off and the fire engines used temporarily to block off the ends of the street. The constables with their truncheons dealt with anyone who tried to squeeze past.

  McPhee was checking for possible casualties. A number of people had been in the house but they seemed to have got out before the fire took hold. They were sitting in a little subdued group on the ground beneath the overhanging windows of the house opposite. People were bringing them water.

  Among them were three Australian soldiers.

  ‘I don’t know, mate,’ one of them was saying to McPhee. He shook his head bewilderedly. ‘I don’t know.’

  The firemen had taken off their helmets and were sitting exhausted on the ground. Owen went up to the man who had given the orders to clear the street.

  ‘That was well done,’ he said.

  The man inclined his head in acknowledgement.

  ‘Some things are in the training manual,’ he said with a grin. ‘Some things are not.’

  He was a short, wiry man in late middle age. His hair was grey.

  ‘And some men know what to do when the manual falls silent,’ said Owen, ‘and others don’t.’

  The fireman shrugged, pleased.

  ‘It flared up,’ he said. ‘We were nearly too late.’

  ‘Even with the new horses?’

  ‘They did well. But we will do even better when the new motor-powered engine gets brought in.’

  ‘Motor power?’ said Owen, impressed.

  ‘Only one. At the moment. But, still, it will make a difference.’

  ‘There will still be the people.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said the fireman. ‘But this is Cairo!’

  He glanced behind him at the fire-blackened building. Wisps of smoke were still curling out from it and a smell of scorching was strong in the air.

  ‘Do you know what made it flare up?’ he said. ‘It was the spirit. This was a liquor house.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘If people only led the lives that God commands,’ he said, ‘perhaps my men and I would not be necessary.’

  He looked at the ruin again.

  ‘It is hard,’ he said, ‘not to see it as a punishment.’

  ***

  Owen chose the same spot again, behind the palm plants.

  It was a mistake.

  Curtis appeared again and hovered.

  ‘Do you mind? Everywhere else seems to have been taken.’

  ‘Please.’ Owen gestured towards the sofa.

  Curtis still hesitated.

  ‘Not waiting for your…wife?’

  ‘No, I’m not waiting for my wife,’ said Owen, without the pause.

  Curtis allowed himself to settle down onto the sofa.

  ‘Work, I expect,’ he said.

  Owen didn’t answer directly.

  ‘And you,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, work. In a way.’

  He looked round at the businessmen packing the huge foyer, their drinks on the low tables behind them, their heads bent confidentially forwards, talking earnestly in small groups.

  ‘I’m hoping to meet a certain supplier.’ He turned back to Owen. ‘He doesn’t seem to be here yet.’

  ‘What particular line?’

  ‘Building materials. They’re establishing some new bases on the Canal.’ He gave Owen a quick look. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t say that,’ he said. ‘Not in a place like this. It’s still fairly secret.’

  ‘Just came out?’

  ‘That’s right. In fact, it’s not really out yet. But in Purchasing you tend to get wind of such things early. Especially when it’s something this size.’

  ‘Big, is it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Well, it has to be, doesn’t it? With the Turks just the other side of the Canal.’
r />   ‘It’s a long stretch to defend.’

  ‘That’s why it has to be several bases. The trouble with that is that it means there has to be a big build-up in purchasing too and the sort of things soon gets noticed. Especially by these chaps here.’ He nodded significantly in the direction of the businessmen. ‘I try to keep my end quiet but—’ he lowered his voice—‘not everyone does the same.’

  ‘Place leaks like a sieve.’

  ‘It does. And the problem is, you see,’—he bent forward until his head was almost touching Owen’s—‘these chaps are all foreigners. We’re increasingly having to buy from abroad. They come here and do some business with us and then they go home again!’

  ‘Taking information?’

  ‘That’s right! They keep their ears open while they’re here and then they go home and, well—’ he touched finger against thumb—‘it means money. If it’s sold in the right place.’ He nodded significantly.

  ‘And that’s even without the spies?’

  ‘Oh, they’re all spies. One way or another.’

  He looked balefully at the next table. The unfortunate Greek who had attracted his hostility before was sitting there again. The Greek felt the weight of Curtis’ gaze and looked up, then looked away again.

  ‘If they’re not already in the enemy’s pay, they know how to make money out of it.’

  ‘I daresay you’re right.’

  The Greek got up from the table and began to go round the groups shaking hands.

  Owen looked at his watch.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me—’

  ‘Of course, of course!’

  Owen stood up.

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ he said. ‘The place leaks like a sieve. Glad you’re taking precautions.’

  ***

  The Greek came down the hotel steps, waved away the donkey--boys and the flower-sellers, glanced momentarily at the pornographic pictures pinned to the terrace railings, and then set off down one of the side streets. After a moment Owen followed him.

  At this time of day, in the heat, there were few people about, although the tall buildings almost touching overhead made the street a dark corridor of coolness; so dark, in fact, that for a second Owen lost sight of the Greek in the shadows. Then he saw him again, poised at the entrance to an underground Arab coffee house. The Greek disappeared inside.

  Owen went down the steps. There was the usual large room with a stone bench running round the wall and low stone tables. In one corner some men were smoking bubble pipes. There was a pleasing gurgle from the water bowls at their feet. The smell of tobacco mingled with the smell of charcoal and with the heavy aroma of coffee and the sweet, sickly smell of hashish.

  The Greek was nowhere to be seen, but then Owen made out that there was an inner, lower room which had escaped him in the darkness. The Greek was sitting alone at a table taking off his tie.

  Owen sat down opposite him.

  ‘I can’t stand it!’ the Greek said, touching the tie. ‘That and the suit!’

  Georgiades was normally a street man and Owen had had his doubts about whether he was up to playing this kind of part. He had, however, the useful gift of looking ordinary in almost any setting and the sympathetic brown eyes invited confidences.

  ‘The suit looks just right,’ Owen said.

  ‘You think so?’ The Greek looked pleased but wiggled his shoulders uncomfortably. ‘Rosa chose it,’ he said.

  ‘She did a good job.’

  ‘It cost four,’ Georgiades said. ‘That’s more than you said, but Rosa said the cheaper ones didn’t look right.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  Four pounds wasn’t excessive, and the Greek might have to wear it for some time yet. ‘How did you manage?’ he asked curiously. ‘The talking bit?’

  ‘Oh, fine, fine.’

  ‘I listened to you. I am impressed. Cotton futures!’

  ‘That’s Rosa too,’ said Georgiades. ‘She reads that sort of stuff every day, you know, and told me what to say.’

  ‘Still—’

  ‘The first day or two I just looked at the financial pages of the newspaper and said ‘Christ!’ from time to time. That seemed to satisfy everybody. It’s what they all do, you know. But I hope to God they know more about it than I do!’

  ‘Anyone approached you yet?’

  ‘Not so far.’

  Owen sat thinking. He wondered how long he could let this continue. There were costs to this. It was all right if you were getting somewhere, but—

  ‘I think there’s a possibility,’ said Georgiades, perhaps guessing what Owen was thinking. ‘There’s someone who might be working up to it. Every day he sort of gets closer. On the verge.’

  ‘All right, then,’ said Owen reluctantly. ‘We’ll carry on for a bit.’

  Georgiades nodded.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’m getting to quite like this. You sit there every day and people buy you drinks. And it’s amazing what you hear! Did you know they’re opening some new bases on the Canal? It’s not come out yet but these people know it already. I tell you, you can’t keep a thing quiet in Egypt. There are spies everywhere!’

  ***

  The wounded were beginning to arrive from Gallipoli and the hospitals were filling up. There was suddenly a shortage of nurses, and the ladies of the British community volunteered their services enthusiastically. Mrs Cunningham began to draw up lists. Cairns-Grant, however, was less enthusiastic. ‘I don’t mind the ladies,’ he said to Owen, ‘but I don’t want Mrs Cunningham in every day telling me what to do.’

  He had asked Owen to come in and see him because he had another problem to do with nursing on his hands. For many years a not inconsiderable part of the nursing at the hospital had been done by German nuns, but could that now continue? There were many who felt that the nuns should be interned, just as all the other German nationals had been. Owen, who had had to do the interning, was less keen. What possible threat was posed by a community of nuns, he asked? But what about the information they might glean from the soldiers in the wards? Glean, and pass on. Yes, it was spies again. Owen appealed to the Minister, and Yasin Effendi, without even a glance at the Adviser, deemed that the nuns could remain where they were.

  But did that mean that they should continue with their nursing? How could it be expected, in the circumstances, that they should nurse with the devotion of English nurses? Mrs Cunningham’s ladies were ready to step into the breach.

  ‘Ay, but the nuns know what they’re doing,’ said Cairns-Grant.

  At his request, Owen had a word with Paul, who had a word with MacMahon, and a compromise was reached whereby the nuns would continue with their duties while the nursing effort generally would be reinforced by Mrs Cunningham’s volunteers.

  ‘And ye can tell that auld biddie,’ said Cairns-Grant, ‘that if there’s one bad word to any of my German lassies, then the whole lot of them will be out of the hospital the next day!’

  Owen had no intention of telling Mrs Cunningham anything just at the moment because he had his own problem in the nursing sphere. When he had gone home one day he had found Zeinab spitting fire. When she had heard that an auxiliary nursing effort was being organised she had approached Mrs Cunningham to volunteer her services. ‘Certainly, my dear,’ said Mrs Cunningham. ‘I’ll put your name down,’ But then she heard nothing more.

  ‘And I know what that means,’ said Zeinab.

  ‘Forget about Mrs Cunningham,’ said Owen. ‘Go straight to Cairns-Grant.’

  ‘I don’t have to plead to foreigners to be allowed to work in the hospitals of my own country,’ raged Zeinab. ‘If the British don’t want me, I’ll nurse Germans.’

  Unfortunately, there weren’t as yet Germans to nurse, so Zeinab nursed her wrath instead and Owen sharpened his dagger and awaited his opportunity.

 
; ***

  Nikos looked up.

  ‘You remember Sabri?’ he said. ‘The one who was killed at the Camel Market?’

  Owen stopped.

  ‘Yes. You were going to have a word with his family?’

  ‘I’ve had a word. That’s all sorted out. If you’ll sign the order, I’ll see that a payment goes through every month.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘But you might like to have a word with them yourself,’ said Nikos. ‘They said that when he died, Sabri was trying to get a message to you.’

  Chapter Three

  Sabri came from a village a few miles up river and the next morning Owen borrowed a horse from the Police Barracks and rode out to it.

  The village lay a little inland from the Nile, a few white, mud-brick houses beneath some lebbek trees. At the far end was a tall dove-cot which held the villagers’ pigeons. From inside came a steady purring. There were pigeons in the lebbek trees, too. They were an important source of meat for the villagers, and also a source of tension. The birds were always raiding the fields nearby, and the few large independent farmers, and the local pasha, who owned most of the land, objected strongly.

  The houses were all single-storey. The smaller ones consisted just of two rooms, one in which the family lived, the other which they shared with the family buffalo. The larger ones had, perhaps, an extra room and were surrounded by a wall to form a kind of courtyard in which the children could play and where the women would cook the meals. The flat roofs of all of them were piled high with onions drying in the sun, dates and beans. A few had heaps of brushwood but wood was scarce and most villagers relied for fuel on paraffin or on dried buffalo droppings.

  Sabri’s house was somewhere in between. It had only two rooms but had a wall around it. The second room, however, was not shared with a buffalo. Sabri had no buffalo. He did not work his land but let it out to a cousin. He rode instead with the Bedawin and their camel herds. He always wanted to be different, his wife told Owen, and he kept himself to himself. That, perhaps, was the meaning of the outer wall.