‘For Christ’s sake, Owen!’
‘What happens if there’s an invasion?’
‘Invasion? Bloody hell, Owen!’
‘Where the hell’s there going to be an invasion from? We’re looking after the Canal.’
‘Tripolitania.’
‘Haven’t you forgotten, Owen?’ said one of the officers, laughing. ‘The Italians are on our side!’
‘The Senussi, say.’
‘The Senussi!’
‘Actually,’ said Paul, ‘Owen could have a point there. They’re always causing trouble.’
‘Well, hell!’ said one of the officers. ‘A bunch of tribesmen! When we’re talking about a war!’
‘They could be a big bunch,’ said Lawrence, ‘if they could ever get together.’
‘How big?’
‘Thirty thousand.’
‘Thirty thousand! Well, now—’
‘If they could ever get together,’ said Lawrence. ‘Which they can’t.’
‘Are there actually any signs of Senussi activity?’ asked Cavendish.
‘No,’ said Lawrence.
‘No,’ Owen had to admit. Then: ‘Yes.’
‘Yes?’
‘Possible signs.’
‘Well, let’s wait until the possible signs become probable, shall we?’ said Cavendish, smiling. ‘Meanwhile—’
***
Mohammed Sekhmet came to the door to greet him.
‘Effendi,’ he said, ‘you honour us.’
‘The honour is mine,’ Owen returned politely, as was the custom.
He led Owen along a corridor with a tiled floor and carpeted walls. At the far end of it a woman fluttered away. A young man emerged from a room and hurried past them, hardly giving Owen a glance.
Mohammed Sekhmet sighed.
‘My son,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘The young these days have no manners.’
They entered a room fitted out in the usual way of the Turkish-Egyptian household. At the end of the room was a low dais, on which there were some large leather cushions. Beside them was a brazier with a coffee pot warming on the coals and a low table with a brass tray and two cups. Nearby was a reading stand with a huge copy of the Koran open upon it.
‘At least Yasmin is not rebelling against the Holy Word yet,’ said Mohammed Sekhmet drily.
They sat down on the cushions. He was pouring Owen some coffee when the young man came back.
‘Father, I must go,’ he said abruptly.
Mohammed Sekhmet raised his eyebrows.
‘Have you no time to greet our guest, Fahmy?’ he said pointedly.
The young man bowed; reluctantly, Owen sensed.
‘I cannot stay, Father,’ he said to Mohammed Sekhmet. ‘The hoses have to be hung out and dried. They are still wet from this morning and Yasmin fears that they could be needed again at any time.’
He jerked his head, very slightly, in Owen’s direction and went out.
Mohammed Sekhmet sighed again.
‘I have told him about it, but it is a thing you cannot be told. It is true, though, that there is work to be done at the fire station. We are very busy just now. It is the heat, I think. And I think that the soldiers are careless.’
‘They are newcomers. They do not understand the needs of the country.’
‘That is true. And what I tell my son. However, you have not come to talk about my son.’
In fact, Owen wasn’t at all sure what Yasmin wanted him to tell her father. He explained where they had got to.
‘Garvin Pasha is just,’ said Mohammed Sekhmet. ‘Severe, but just. I do not know the man from Parquet, but the Parquet is usually reasonable. As for this lady—’ He shook his head. ‘She seems very young to me.’
‘And so, perhaps, she can speak to Yasmin,’ said Owen.
‘Perhaps,’ said Mohammed Sekhmet doubtfully.
‘They are going to meet again. And it may be that she will be able to persuade your daughter. If she does,’ Owen hesitated, ‘I think that, for a while at least, your hand on her should be light.’
Mohammed Sekhmet nodded.
‘I do not think it has been heavy,’ he said, ‘but she may have seen it so.’
He seemed to be thinking.
‘I would like you to meet my wife,’ he said suddenly.
‘I would be honoured,’ said Owen, surprised.
‘If it is a question of how we bear ourselves towards Yasmin, then I think it would be well if she were present.’
She came into the room so quickly that Owen suspected she had been present, or at any rate within hearing distance. She was veiled, of course, and in the usual veil of the Turkish-Egyptian woman, white and with no nose-pipe. He did not let his eyes linger on her, however, as this would be disrespectful, and kept them firmly fixed on the ground in front of her.
Mohammed Sekhmet went through again what Owen had just told him.
‘This woman,’ she said, ‘the one who is talking to her: you say she was at school with Yasmin?’
‘Yes. And therefore I thought Yasmin might listen to her.’
‘I do not like that school.’
‘It is a good school,’ said Mohammed Sekhmet. ‘The best.’
‘It has not been good for Yasmin. It has taken her away from us. It has put the wrong ideas in her head.’
‘I do not think Yasmin’s ideas have come from the school,’ said Owen.
He could see her hand gesture impatiently.
‘The school has prepared the ground,’ she said. ‘It has made her think not as she ought to think. It has made her look too far.’
‘Too far?’
‘For a woman. A woman’s life is different from a man’s.’
‘It is right that she should look far,’ objected Mohammed Sekhmet.
‘Not if she is a woman. A woman cannot look too far. You have seen how it is with her. She is unhappy, dissatisfied. And now she will never be happy. What life can she lead now? What man will have her? Already she is old. But it is not that. It is what she has become. She is not submissive. She is not respectful. She puts herself forward. What man will want a wife like that?’
‘An Effendi will,’ said Mohammed Sekhmet.
‘One of the young Effendis at the banks? Or in the offices? The Parquet, perhaps? No, they will not look at her. I know these young Effendis. They talk much about new things but it is all talk. In the end it is not they who will choose their wife but their mother. Or their father. And what mother will wish a daughter--in-law like that? Always answering back, always questioning.’
‘Someone will,’ said Mohammed Sekhmet stubbornly.
‘No one will. And so she will have to stay forever with us, grow old with us. She will bear no children, never have a life. It is not what I would have wished for my daughter.’
‘What would you have wished?’ said Mohammed Sekhmet angrily. ‘That she should stay all her life in the kitchen? A girl like that? Or—no, I know what it is: you would have her back in the village, in the fields!’
‘The fields, no! The village, yes. My brother would have found her a good husband. Any man would be glad to marry the niece of the Pasha’s man.’
‘But what sort of life would she lead? What sort of life?’ demanded Mohammed Sekhmet excitedly.
‘A better one than in the city. Where the young learn foolish things and talk foolish words. And not just foolish words, dangerous words: look at Fahmy, look at Yasmin. She is already in trouble with the Kadi and with the Mamur Zapt. And she is still only at school. Where will it end?’
She began to rock herself and wail in the style of the village woman.
‘Enough, woman! Enough!’ shouted Mohammed Sekhmet angrily. ‘Leave us! You shame me, you shame your family!’
‘Our family is already shamed,’ s
he retorted. ‘By the daughter you have made.’
***
‘Effendi,’ said Mohammed Sekhmet, turning to Owen apologetically after she had gone, ‘what can I say?’
‘Nothing needs to be said,’ said Owen. ‘Except that I feel for you in your difficulties.’
‘There are difficulties, yes. My wife is a good woman, Effendi, but she lives in the past. Her heart is still in the village in which she grew up. Her brother is the Pasha’s agent, the Pasha Ismail—’
‘The Pasha Ismail?’
‘Yes. His lands are not far from the city. They lie along the river. There is a village there—’
‘I think I know the village.’
It would be Sabri’s village.
‘And I think I know her brother, too. Is it not Osman Huq?’
‘It is, Effendi. And if you know the man, you know my fears. I have nothing against Osman. He has always served the Pasha truly, as his father served the Pasha’s father before him, and his father yet again before him. Their family has always served the Pasha, and that is good. But my wife thinks it must always be so. And it is not so, Effendi. The world is changing. I have no need of my daughter to tell me that. But Osman does not see this.’
‘He remains true to the old ways?’
‘That is exactly it, Effendi. And what I fear is that he might not choose wisely for Yasmin. What might have been a good man in the past may not be a good man today. At least to Yasmin. She has tested the city and knows the breadth of the world. A man of the village and the life of the village would not be right for her. Osman takes his thoughts from the Pasha and expects the village to take their thoughts from him. He will expect Yasmin to take her thoughts from her husband. But, Effendi, you have seen Yasmin and you know that she will not. And what then, Effendi, what then?’
‘The path you originally chose for Yasmin was the right one for her. We must see she stays on it.’
‘But what if she will not, Effendi? These are difficult times for families like ours, Osman’s and mine. The war presses questions. It is a long time since we came with the Pashas from Turkey and we have forgotten we were Turks. But if the Turks come here, will not that remind us? A family like mine is pulled all ways at a time like this.
‘In the past we had our loyalty to the Pashas and to the Khedive to guide us. But the world of the Pashas is gone and the Khedive—well, he is not the Khedive as he was. It is the British now.
‘But is that right? Yasmin says it is not. But what, then, is right? We do not know in which direction to turn. I say: trust in God. My children say: what shall we do?’
***
When Owen got home, Zeinab was sitting out on the balcony with a drink in her hand. He showered, collected a drink himself, and went out. He could see at once that something had gone wrong.
‘What’s happened?’ he said.
‘I went to Samira’s.’ She shrugged. ‘It was bad.’
‘They froze you out?’
‘No, no. They welcomed me in. But it was like going into a trap. I felt that it had all been, well, arranged. For my benefit. There were a lot of people there I didn’t know. Samira’s relatives. Well, I thought I knew her relatives, on my side of the family at least. But this was on the other side, Hussein’s side. When he became Sultan suddenly all that side of the family became important, to Samira, anyway. I didn’t know any of them. I couldn’t see why I was there. But then I saw.’
She grimaced.
‘Faruq came in. He came late, and as soon as he came through the door I knew what this was all about. He made straight for me and the people I was talking to somehow dropped away. After a while he said he’d like to show me his apartments at the Palace. I said, no thanks. He took me by the arm and tried to pull me away but Daoud—you remember Daoud? He’s Samira’s half-brother, and I’ve always got on with him—said: ‘No, Faruq!’ and he had to let me go.
‘He was angry. I could tell it from the way he looked at Daoud, but Daoud stood his ground. I don’t think he likes Faruq, or maybe it’s just that he likes me. Anyway, Faruq hung around for a while. He kept looking at me. Then he came across. “One day I’m not going to ask,” he said. “I’m going to tell.” I suppose he meant when he becomes Sultan.’
‘If he becomes Sultan,’ said Owen.
‘They all think he will. He thinks he will.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘Anyway,’ said Zeinab, ‘after a while he left, and that was a relief. But then they all started on me. Samira was first. “What’s wrong with you, Zeinab?” she said. “He’s interested in you. Can’t you be interested in him? Just a little?” “No,” I said. “Not even if I wasn’t married.” “Don’t be stupid!” she said. “You’ve backed the wrong horse. You’ve got a chance now to put that right. The Turks are going to win, and then where will you be?”’
‘Let them win first,’ said Owen, ‘and then they can do the talking.’
‘They all think the Turks are going to win. They say they’re going to invade at any moment. They seem to know all about it, where the Turkish soldiers are, who their generals are, that sort of thing.’
‘Do they know about the British too?’
‘Of course. Well, you know Cairo.’
‘They could be wrong, you know.’
‘I know. But they seemed very confident. All the talk was about what was going to happen afterwards. They think the Turks will keep Hussein on the throne for a bit, but he’s old and not at all well, and they think that soon Faruq will replace him. “Now’s your chance, Zeinab,” they said. “Get in on the right side!”’
‘The right side!’ said Owen.
‘Well, it is the right side to them. They are Turkish, after all. We are Turkish. In fact,’ said Zeinab, ironically, ‘suddenly everyone’s Turkish!’
They both laughed.
‘Prematurely, I think,’ said Owen.
Zeinab sobered up.
‘But it wasn’t very nice,’ she said. ‘They were all on to me. I said: “Why are you doing this? Why go to all this bother? Aren’t there plenty of other women for Faruq?” But I know why. I’m the one he fancies just at the moment, and they think that if they help him to get me, then he’ll remember it when the time comes. The bastards!’
‘They’re positioning themselves for when the Turks come,’ said Owen. ‘Or so they think.’
‘Well, I don’t mind that,’ said Zeinab. ‘That’s sensible. It’s the doing it at my expense that I mind. The ganging up on me. These are my own relatives, distant, I’ll admit, but part of my world. And Samira is a friend! Or so I thought. She’s the one I turned to when I wanted to talk things over. We used to meet all the time. And now she does this to me!’
‘Maybe Faruq asked her.’
‘But why did she have to agree?’
‘For the same reason as the others. She wanted to be on the right side when the time came.’
‘I thought she was my friend. I thought maybe she was feeling sorry for me, that she wanted to help. But to do this!’
She looked at Owen.
‘It hurts worse, you know, than being frozen out.’
She put her glass down.
‘But, do you know,’ she said, almost in surprise at herself, ‘I’m already beginning to feel better? And that is because I’m not just feeling hurt: I’m beginning to feel angry.’
Chapter Ten
‘She is a foolish girl!’ said Mahmoud, as he led Owen upstairs to the mandar’ah, the big reception room.
‘Very young, certainly.’
‘Not just young; foolish,’ said Mahmoud severely.
Owen began to wonder what Yasmin had done.
‘Very foolish,’ said Mahmoud, as they went in at the door. ‘Her father ought to do something about her.’
Aisha, too, seemed a little ruffled. She had seen Yasmin that morning,
and Owen had been invited round so that she could report.
‘Is Yasmin being difficult?’ said Owen, his heart sinking.
‘Yes,’ said Mahmoud.
‘Yes,’ said Aisha, less definitely.
‘You have not been able to persuade her? She won’t go along with it?’
‘Oh, she’ll go along with it,’ said Aisha. ‘It took some time to persuade her but in the end she agreed. She is prepared to be let off with a warning. At one stage she seemed to be wishing that it be accompanied by a personal apology from the Mamur Zapt but I managed to convince her that wasn’t necessary.’
‘Aisha, you’re wonderful!’
‘Ye-es,’ said Aisha, doubtfully.
‘She has agreed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then—?’
‘She is a very foolish girl!’ said Mahmoud.
‘What exactly is the trouble?’
There was a long silence, while Mahmoud looked at Aisha and Aisha looked at Mahmoud.
‘It is her attitude,’ said Mahmoud.
‘Well, I know that she is sometimes—’
‘And her ideas.’
‘Well, yes, they certainly—’
‘She is lacking in respect.’
‘The fact is,’ said Aisha, ‘she hasn’t any common sense at all.’
‘Well, I’m very sorry to hear—’
‘She asked to see me,’ said Mahmoud.
‘You?’
‘I said that I thought it was unnecessary,’ said Mahmoud, looking severely at Aisha. ‘But Aisha said it was part of the agreement.’
‘That she should see you?’
‘Alone,’ said Mahmoud.
‘Alone?’
‘I said that was quite improper, and that Aisha should be there. Or perhaps my mother. Or perhaps her mother. But she insisted.’
‘It was part of the agreement,’ said Aisha unhappily.
‘So in the end I agreed. Foolishly and wrongly.’
‘What happened?’
‘It was very embarrassing.’
He stopped. He seemed unwilling to say more. Owen looked at Aisha.
‘She told him how much she admired him,’ said Aisha.
‘Loved,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Loved, not admired.’
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