The Point in the Market

by Michael Pearce

  All the same, Zeinab thought she could understand what it might mean to live in a family like this Yasmin. It would feel very like living in that close, claustrophobic world of the Egyptian elite that she herself lived in. And she could sense, and share, Aisha’s reservations.

  ‘I think she wants to be free,’ she said.

  Aisha nodded her head in satisfaction.

  ‘I am sorry, I do not understand,’ said Mahmoud. He wasn’t quite sure what this was all about, but suddenly it seemed to matter. ‘In what sense, “free”?’ Ideas fired him up. As they did many Egyptians. That, for Owen, was one of the delights of Cairo café conversation. ‘How can you cut yourself off from your father, your family, and be free? They are part of you, and you part of them. You cannot shed your duties to them in the way a lizard shakes off its skin.’

  ‘I don’t think she quite wants to do that,’ said Owen. ‘Anyway, I think that toying with shedding them is part of growing up.’

  ‘Toying is all very well,’ said Mahmoud, ‘if it leads to a proper appreciation of the family and how much wisdom it contains. She should not go against her father.’

  ‘Do you think that this “toying” applies to political ideas, too?’ asked Aisha. ‘Do you think that is what Yasmin is doing—toying with ideas which she will discard later? Because if you do, I think you are wrong. And it is not respectful, not respectful to her.’

  ‘No,’ said Zeinab.

  ‘These ideas are serious to her. And not just to her. They are serious ideas. And you should not discount them. I will speak to Yasmin, yes, for I do not want her to be hurt. But if she insists that she wants her ideas taken seriously and believes that this is the only way they will be, then I shall not go against her.’

  She had changed, thought Owen.

  ***

  Georgiades was looking positively green.

  ‘What the hell is the matter?’

  ‘I’m shit scared.’

  Owen had never seen him like this before.

  ‘It’s all right. I’ll get someone round. He’ll be right alongside you. Two of them, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘No, no, it’s not that.’

  ‘You don’t need to worry. You’re not on your own. I’ll send Aziz round. Selim, too. He may not be bright but he’s big. He’s just the man for something like this.’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘What’s got into you? You’re not usually like this. Look, I’ll stay with you myself until the others get here.’

  Georgiades shook his head despairingly.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not that.’

  ‘What the hell is it, then?’

  ‘It’s Rosa.’

  ‘Rosa!’

  ‘I told you she takes an interest in that sort of thing. Business.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘She’s going into it on her own. I’ve been telling her about all these blokes here and the way they’re all on the make, the way they’re shoving things up to the Canal as fast as they can go.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, she reckons if they can do it, so can she. And she’s signed a contract—Jesus, the thought of it scares me, just the thought of it—to deliver a thousand ardabs of camel fodder to the Camel Corps detachments at the Canal. She fixed it up with someone in Supplies. A thousand ardabs!

  ‘“You must be crazy,” I said: “where the hell are you going to get a thousand ardabs of berseem from?” “Oh, that’s all right,” she said, “I’ve got that arranged.” There’s this village a few miles out of town and she’s talked to the pasha’s agent there and he’s agreed to supply her. She’s signed a contract for that, too!’

  Georgiades beat his head.

  ‘Contracts!’ he said. ‘Actually signed them! “Look,” I said, “the one thing I know about lawyers—and, believe me, I’ve had some experience of them in my job—is that you don’t let them trick you into signing any kind of contract. You don’t sign anything when you’ve got a lawyer around. A contract is just a handle to screw you with. Believe me, I know!”’

  ‘“No, you don’t,” she says. “I sign contracts for the family business every week when my father’s away.” Well, that’s something I didn’t know, and wouldn’t have agreed to it if I had. Not that that would have done much good, she never listens to me. But that’s what she’s done, signed contracts for a thousand ardabs of camel fodder!

  ‘“Where are you going to get the money?” I say. “Where are you going to get the money? This bloke’s not going to give you berseem for nothing. Not if he’s like any other Pasha’s agent I know.”

  ‘“It’s all right,” she says. “I’ve got that figured out. It’s in the contract. Payment for a quarter within a month, the rest to follow in six weeks.” “A month?” I said. “Six weeks?” “Yes,” she says. “By then I’ll have the first payment in from the Camel Corps—that’s in the contract, too, the one the Camel Corps has signed. And the rest will be in before the six weeks is up.”’

  ‘“It must be a hundred thousand piastres!”’ I say. “A hundred and thirty,” she says. “Don’t forget my profit margin.” “Yes, well, suppose it goes wrong? I only get four hundred piastres a week!” “It won’t go wrong,” she says. “Go back to sleep!”

  ‘I wish I could go back to sleep, I can tell you. I lie awake at nights thinking about it. A thousand ardabs! A hundred thousand piastres! She must be crazy.

  ‘I can’t bear to think about it. It gets me down. I’ve never been much good with money. I don’t like to think about it. It comes in and it goes out. That’s all I know about it and all I want to know. Anything more terrifies me. I give her my money at the end of each week and say: “Okay, you handle it. Give me something from time to time, and the rest is up to you.” And now she does this!

  ‘What will we do if it doesn’t work out? I’ve got a house, I’ve got a kid. What will we do? Oh, my God,’ said Georgiades, ‘I feel terrible.’

  Chapter Eight

  Even from his office Owen could hear it. There seemed to be some disturbance in the yard below. Women’s voices, men’s voices, raised in altercation. A few moments later Owen’s orderly came in, his face flushed.

  ‘Effendi, there is a nuisance in the yard. Some crazy woman. She wants to see you. Abdul asks, what is her business? She says her business is with you, not with him. He says, everyone wants to see the Mamur Zapt—this is not quite true, Effendi—and he, Abdul, needs to be sure that they are not time wasters; so what is her business? She says, she hasn’t time to waste on him, she needs to see the Mamur Zapt now, at once. He asks her her business again and she tries to push past him. He says, okay, you daft bitch, then you can wait. So she kicks him in the balls. Ibrahim and Mustapha seek to restrain her but this is difficult because she is fighting and biting and scratching. We have to call for Selim. She tries to bite him too but he knows how to hold her. I will say this for him, he really knows how to handle a woman. However, Effendi, she has just kneed him in the balls, too, and I really think it would be best if you came—’ It was Sabri’s widow.

  ‘It’s all right, you can let her go.’

  ‘Effendi, are you sure? She is some wild woman—’

  ‘That’s all right. Let her go.’

  She shook herself free and stood panting and sobbing.

  ‘Come with me.’

  He started to lead her up to his office but she seized him by the arm and said: ‘There is not time!’

  ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘My son!’ she said. ‘He has gone to the Camel Market to seek out the Bedawin. He says, if Ahmed will not demand satisfaction from them, then he will! But, Effendi, they will kill him. He is just a boy.’

  ‘Be easy. The Bedawin are not there.’

  ‘They are, Effendi. They have returned. One spoke of it in the village. He had seen them with their camels. And
foolish people in the village began to murmur, and say: “They walk comfortably, while Sabri lies dead.” But Salah, my son, said: “I will not let this be so.” And he ran for his knife, and I tried to reason with him, but he shook me off. He seized Shukri’s donkey and rode off for the city, and now, Effendi, I fear for him.’

  ‘I will go at once. Selim, get an arabeah. And you’d better come with me.’

  ‘You must save him, Effendi. You owe me this. Did not his father die on your business? Must the son die, too?’

  ***

  The Bedawin were indeed back. He could see them on the other side of the Market, busy with a new lot of camels. They seemed to be having some trouble. The camels were pitching and tossing and threatening to break away. The Bedawin were cursing and running round with their whips. He could see no sign, fortunately, of the boy.

  When he got closer he saw what the trouble was about. A huge bull camel was in rut—you could tell by the pink, balloon-like bladder, the size of a football, inflated from the side of its mouth. It was milling about and making a nuisance of itself. The Bedawin were trying to separate it from the other camels. It was biting and snapping at them. Someone managed to get a rope over its head and then a silsil chain. Owen hoped it wouldn’t break. A great bull camel like this was immensely strong. Eventually the Bedawin managed to get some hobbles on.

  ‘We should have left this one behind,’ said one of the Bedawin, wiping his sleeve across his face to mop up the sweat.

  ‘It’s a good camel, though, and will fetch a good price.’

  ‘We could have picked it up next time.’

  ‘There won’t be a next time. We’ve just about cleared the place out.’

  ‘We’ve just about cleared the country out, I should think. There can’t be many good camels left.’

  ‘A good job, too. Now we can go home.’

  ‘There’ll be plenty of camels there,’ said Owen.

  ‘If the Senussi haven’t got them.’

  He had a moment to spare.

  ‘You’re having problems with the Senussi again?’

  There were always problems in the west with the Senussi. They were a large confederation of tribes based for the most part in Libya, but borders were elastic in that area and they were always raiding across into Egypt and the Sudan.

  ‘Not exactly problems this time. It’s just that when we left, there were quite a few of them about.’

  ‘They said they wanted to buy camels. It had been a bad year for breeding so far as they were concerned and they needed to replenish their stock. They were willing to pay good prices, they said.’

  ‘If they really are prepared to pay good prices, then I don’t mind. But Sabri said that was a lot of nonsense. He’d heard some of them talking and it was just an excuse. They hadn’t brought any money with them.’

  ‘Well, if they weren’t thinking of paying for them, then the sooner we get back, the better.’

  ‘You know, I thought I might ride ahead and—’

  He stopped. He was looking at something on the other side of the Market. All the other Bedawin were turning round.

  It was the boy. He was standing there, brandishing a dagger and shouting at the Bedawin nearest him.

  Owen started across. The other Bedawin followed him.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ someone said.

  ‘I defy you!’ the boy was shouting. ‘Choose your man and send him out!’

  ‘Run along, lad!’ someone said.

  ‘You are men without honour! I have always heard that the Bedawin were men. Now I know that is not true!’

  ‘Now look, lad—’

  ‘Shut your mouth!’ It was the one who had spoken truculently to Owen when he had first asked them about Sabri. He began to walk towards the boy, feeling for his knife.

  ‘Leave him!’ Owen shouted. ‘He’s Sabri’s boy!’

  ‘Sabri’s boy!’

  The man stopped for a moment.

  ‘He shouldn’t speak like that,’ he said.

  ‘He means nothing by it. He doesn’t know what he is doing. He is but a boy!’

  ‘Yes, but—All the same, he shouldn’t speak like that.’

  ‘Why does he have to speak like that to us?’

  ‘Fools have been speaking to him. They say you have refused compensation.’

  ‘Compensation? What the hell have we got to pay compensation for?’

  ‘He thinks we did it.’

  ‘Did the hell what?’

  ‘Killed Sabri.’

  ‘But we’ve told them we didn’t. Don’t they believe us?’

  ‘That’s bloody insulting!’

  ‘He ought not to speak to us like that,’ said the truculent one, moving forward again.

  ‘He is just a boy!’ cried Owen. ‘Misled by foolish men!’ He ran between them. ‘He is Sabri’s son. Sabri, who rode with you!’ He suddenly became angry. ‘Kill him,’ he said, ‘and then, indeed, men will say you are without honour!’

  ‘Here—’

  ‘Effendi,’ muttered Selim, ‘bethink you—’

  Several of the men were now heading towards them, their hands on their belts.

  There were policemen in the Market, but they were hanging back. And there were soldiers, too, the Levantine’s ones, in with the camels. But they were prudently keeping their distance.

  ‘He is Sabri’s son, Sabri, who was one of you!’

  ‘He was not one of us.’

  ‘He rode with you.’

  ‘That’s not the same thing.’

  ‘He shouldn’t speak like that,’ said the man. ‘Not to us.’

  He suddenly stepped forward. Owen stood in his way. The man thrust at Owen with his knife. Selim, possibly foolishly, as he told the orderly room later that afternoon, but bravely, as he also told the orderly room, struck him on the arm with his truncheon. The Bedawin cried out in pain—Selim was a big man and apprehension made him hit hard—and dropped his knife on the ground.

  The other Bedawin moved in.

  Owen snatched the boy’s knife from him and threw that on the ground too.

  ‘An unarmed boy!’ he cried, ‘the son of a man who rode with you! I did not believe this of the Bedawin. I took you for men of honour!’

  ‘So we are!’

  ‘But—’

  Owen looked round desperately. He saw the men who had talked to him at the fire and suddenly their names flashed into his mind.

  ‘Wajja!’ he said. ‘Mukhtar. Sabri was with you that night!’

  Mukhtar, the older one, stopped.

  ‘He was,’ he said.

  ‘The boy needs counselling,’ said Owen. ‘Not a knife!’

  ‘He has no father to give him counsel,’ admitted Wajja.

  ‘Has he no uncle?’ said the truculent man, still grimacing with pain.

  ‘Alas—’ said Owen.

  The Bedawin began to weaken.

  ‘He did ride with us,’ one of them said.

  ‘Sabri was all right,’ said Wajja.

  ‘He shouldn’t have spoken to us like that,’ said the truculent one doggedly.

  ‘He shouldn’t,’ said Owen, ‘and I will speak to him quietly.’

  ‘My father is dead,’ said the boy, weeping now.

  ‘Son, it happens,’ said one of the Bedawin, not unkindly.

  ‘You can believe them,’ Owen said to the boy. ‘It wasn’t them. Men have told you wrongly.’

  The boy stood there for a moment, his face working. Then he turned on his heel and began to walk away. He had gone a few paces when he stopped and faced them.

  ‘I have done you wrong,’ he said, jerking his head in an odd little half bow.

  Then he continued on his way across the Market.

  ‘Effendi,’ said the older Bedawin, Mukhtar, quietly,
‘it were well this was known in his village. For he has borne himself bravely.’

  ***

  The Bedawin were subdued afterwards.

  ‘It is a bad business,’ one of them said to Owen.

  ‘It will remain a bad business until I find the men who did it.’

  ‘That it should be Sabri who was killed! A man without enemies.’

  ‘That is what makes it hard.’

  The Bedawin began to drift back to the camels. Owen went with them.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said to the man he’d just been speaking to, ‘was it widely know that Sabri was going to speak to the Mamur Zapt the next day?’

  ‘He made no secret of it,’ the man said.

  ‘Among you. But what of the others in the Market?’

  The man thought.

  ‘It wouldn’t have been,’ he said. ‘For he returned to us at dusk and by that time the Market was closed.’

  ***

  The ward was long and thin and very crowded. The beds had been pushed together to fit more in and there was hardly space between them to stand. Owen was shocked to see how full it was. He had heard, of course, about the flood of wounded coming in from Gallipoli but seeing the ward packed like this brought it home to him.

  It was quiet at this end of the ward. The bandaged figures lay motionless. Above, the great fans turned continually, and on the walls the lizards darted and froze. There was a heavy smell of disinfectant in the air, and other smells, too, which he had not smelt since his army days on the North West Frontier, the heavy, unpleasant smell of gangrene.

  The other end of the ward was more lively, though. Figures were sitting up in bed, engrossed. As he came towards them there was a clap of hands and then a great cheer. He saw that there were piles of money on the floor between the beds. People bent over and scrabbled among the money and then threw notes and coins on to neighbouring beds.

  ‘Number Two!’ a voice called out. ‘Second bed on the left. Wally’s. A big fat green one.’

  ‘It’s moved! It’s not over Wally any more.’