The Bride Box mz-17

by Michael Pearce

  ‘Despite your being sent away so that I shouldn’t.’

  He waited, but again Suleiman made no response.

  ‘So let me ask you now the question I would have asked if you had stayed with the others; it concerns Soraya’s bride box.’

  He waited, then went on: ‘It was sent away, wasn’t it? By the mistress, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Suleiman, guardedly.

  ‘Along with Soraya.’

  ‘That is so,’ Suleiman agreed.

  ‘Were you sorry to see Soraya go? You were to be married to her, were you not?

  ‘I was.’

  ‘And then you weren’t. How was that?’

  Suleiman hesitated. ‘The mistress wanted it otherwise.’

  ‘Because Soraya was proving unsatisfactory?’

  ‘Unsatisfactory, yes.’

  ‘Did you find her unsatisfactory?’

  Suleiman shrugged.

  ‘She was to marry you. Surely she was satisfactory, then?

  Suleiman said nothing.

  ‘To the mistress, perhaps, but not to you?’

  ‘To neither of us.’

  ‘Then …?’

  ‘She would have it so.’

  ‘But you didn’t care for the girl?’

  ‘She was forward. She would not have been a good wife.’

  ‘To you. But perhaps to Karim?’

  ‘She would have been a bad wife to Karim, too.’

  ‘Why?’

  Suleiman struggled for words. ‘It would not have worked out,’ he said.

  ‘No? Why?’

  ‘It was unseemly. She ought never to have thought of it.’

  ‘Soraya, that is?’

  ‘Soraya, yes. She was raising her eyes too high.’

  ‘So the mistress sent her away. But, being compassionate, she had previously looked out another husband for her. You.’

  ‘Me, yes.’

  ‘But then she thought better.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And sent her away. Back to her home.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you go with her?’

  Suleiman hesitated. ‘Not I, no.’

  ‘I was told you did. That you had command of her return?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And saw to the bride box?’

  There was a long delay before Suleiman responded. ‘I saw that it was done,’ he said at last.

  ‘Did you not go with her?’

  ‘I may have done. Part of the way.’

  ‘But then returned?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘After having seen to her killing?’

  ‘No. No. I did not do that.’

  ‘But you had charge. Perhaps you merely said it should be done?’

  ‘I did not see to it. Not that. The charge was passed to others.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I cannot remember.’

  Mahmoud raised his eyebrows. ‘The charge was passed to others? Whom you do not know?’

  ‘That is so, yes.’

  ‘A strange way of dealing with your mistress’s charge! But perhaps she decreed that, too?’

  Suleiman said nothing.

  ‘Someone killed her, Suleiman. Either you, or someone you charged with the task. For she did not get home, did she? How was that?’

  Suleiman’s eyes began to look around. ‘Perhaps bad men fell upon her,’ he muttered.

  ‘I think they did. But one of the bad men was you, Suleiman.’

  ‘That is not so.’

  ‘Then who? You were in charge, Suleiman. Which man was it?’

  ‘I do not know. I do not know the men. They were bad men. They fell upon her.’

  ‘Did you not stop them?’

  ‘I could not stop them!’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I ran away.’

  ‘There were men with you. Did they run away too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who were these men who were with you? Were they men in the mistress’s service?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Their names!’

  ‘I … I do not recall.’

  ‘I shall ask, Suleiman. And let us hope that they say what you say. Or it will go ill with you. Now tell me another thing: when you got home, did you speak of this to anyone? Think carefully before you speak, because I shall ask them.’

  ‘I … I did not speak of it to anyone.’

  ‘Not even after so dreadful a thing?’

  ‘I was afraid.’

  ‘Did you not speak of this to your mistress? Surely she questioned you when you returned?’

  ‘I spoke of it, yes.’

  ‘She did not speak of it to me.’

  ‘When I spoke of it, I spoke … generally,’ said Suleiman, looking acutely miserable.

  ‘Now tell me the truth,’ said Mahmoud.

  It was Zeinab’s turn to take the children to school that morning. Sometimes Musa took them and sometimes his wife; sometimes it was Aisha, Mahmoud’s wife, and sometimes Zeinab. That morning it was Zeinab, which she quite liked. She would deposit the little girls at their kindergarten and then go on to call on friends — sometimes, indeed, Aisha — and occasionally to shop in the big French stores. Zeinab wasn’t that interested in shopping but it was important for an emancipated Pasha’s daughter to ensure that her turnout was comme il faut and in a dressy place like Cairo that required constant review.

  The two little girls, Leila and Aisha’s daughter Maryam, walked along hand in hand, chattering. Zeinab walked just behind them.

  Somebody bumped into her, jostled her, in fact, and when Zeinab, taking umbrage, turned to address them, they spun away into the crowd.

  When Zeinab turned forward again there were no longer two little girls but just one. Leila had vanished. A shocked Maryam, roughly thrust aside, her hand torn from Leila’s, stood in mid-wail.

  ‘Where is Leila?’ said Zeinab, also shocked, and stunned by the suddenness of it all.

  It took her a moment or two to realize that Leila had been snatched away.

  Zeinab grabbed Maryam by her hand, then picked her up and carried her as that was easier, and began to hurry around asking people if they had seen a little girl, dark, being taken away. The crowd was sympathetic and soon everyone was looking.

  ‘A little girl — Sudani!’

  But Leila had disappeared.

  A policeman was fetched. Others appeared, for Zeinab was not a Pasha’s daughter for nothing, and threw her weight around.

  When they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere she commandeered an arabeah and went to the Bab-el-Khalk. The friendly McPhee, much agitated, had a dozen policemen in the street in a flash and, later, Garvin the Commandant added his reinforcement. In no time the streets were flooded with policemen.

  But to no avail. Hours later they were forced to admit to themselves that little Leila had disappeared completely.

  THIRTEEN

  Zeinab, who had never quite realized how much she cared for Leila, was distraught. Gradually, however, her distraction turned to anger. Mostly her anger was directed towards Owen. What was the point of having a Mamur Zapt for a partner if when it came to the crunch he was as powerless as you were? Zeinab had been close to power all her life, but now, when that power mattered most, it had all somehow dissipated.

  She couldn’t understand Owen’s attitude. He seemed so calm. Garvin, McPhee, Nikos, even Georgiades, they all seemed so calm, whereas she was boiling, raging. It was, she decided, because they were cold. All Englishmen were cold. They had cold exteriors, unable or unwilling to display the slightest natural emotion, and they were cold inside. They didn’t feel as Egyptians did. Nor as Arabs did, nor as any decent human being would. Cold, that’s what they were: cold. She felt that Owen should be tearing around the place doing something; and yet all he did was sit silently in the house, before putting on his fez and going to his office, where, doubtless, he continued to sit silently, doing nothing!

  She wanted to lash out, to hit someone.
Why wasn’t he doing that? The old Mamur Zapts they used to have under the Khedive would certainly have done that. They would have flogged someone. ‘Why don’t you do that?’ she demanded.

  ‘Certainly!’ said Owen. ‘But who?’

  That irritated Zeinab even more and she stamped out of the room. Then stamped back in.

  ‘Aren’t you at least going to do something?’

  Musa was doing something. He had found his old service rifle, loaded it, and gone grimly out on the streets. When he returned, briefly, to grab some food — his wife, who, knowing her husband, had it waiting for him — he went off again after having swallowed barely a mouthful, urged on by Latifa, who afterwards went out and patrolled the streets herself. Of course it was useless, a complete waste of time. But at least they were doing something.

  Zeinab wondered if she should go out, too, but had to admit, in her heart, that there was little point. McPhee had police out everywhere and if they couldn’t find anything then it was unlikely that she would. And then Garvin pulled the police off the streets! Deciding it was a waste of time, probably. Another cold Englishman!

  When Owen came home at the end of the day, she wouldn’t speak to him.

  Garvin had pulled the police off the streets at Owen’s request. Even the far too gentle McPhee was appalled. He did not normally question decisions from above, but on this occasion, shaking with anger, he did. He went to see Garvin and Owen and was satisfied by neither.

  In fact, there was method in the madness. The truth was that Owen and Garvin had bigger fish to fry.

  On what had become his usual patrol now, Georgiades had run into Abdul, the porter.

  ‘I’m hoping to have something for you soon!’ he said to Abdul cheerfully.

  ‘Not today,’ said Abdul. ‘I’ve got something else on.’

  ‘Not …?’

  Abdul nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to get my men to the warehouse when the muezzin calls this evening.’

  ‘Another night job?’

  ‘It could be.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea where? Keeping you in the dark as usual?’

  ‘As usual. Except that Nassir says I’ll know the place.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Been there before.’

  ‘And I’m not to say anything,’ said Abdul. ‘But nothing, says Nassir. And this time, he says, he means it. And Clarke Effendi will be standing over him and me and everyone else while we’re doing it.’

  Georgiades padded along to the warehouse.

  ‘Can’t stop to talk,’ said Nassir.

  ‘Not even for a cup of coffee?’

  Nassir shook his head regretfully. ‘The boss will be along at any moment,’ he said.

  Georgiades reported all this to Nikos, who had been expecting it for the last couple of days. A man had come to the madrassa the previous morning, gone in, but not to the teacher, and spent some time there. Then he had come out, and had been followed home by one of Owen’s watchers. Home, it turned out, was the town house of the Pasha Ali Maher.

  The police had been pulled off the streets so that their presence would not deter Ali Maher from any action that he was proposing to undertake. Guns, especially in that quantity, were important to the police. If they were linked to rioting, the situation would become very difficult to control.

  They had to have priority. Both Owen and Garvin knew that. It wasn’t just whatever unrest Ali Maher and his associates had in mind — that could be taken care of — but it was the possibility that it might spread that worried them. Shooting would invite return shooting and who knows where it would end?

  So Owen waited in his office. He had made his arrangements and, for the moment, there was nothing more he could do. Reports came in continually through Nikos.

  Reports came in, too, about the search for Leila. They were all negative. It was only too easy for anyone, especially a child, to disappear into the warren of little back streets that made up Cairo. You needed a lead. Without a lead he knew he would never find her.

  He racked his brains all afternoon. Why had Leila been taken? Was it some crazy man who had taken a fancy to her? These things happened. They were not infrequent in Cairo. There was no wider rationality to them. They just happened, on a man’s wild fancy. And so it was very hard to find a thread in them to follow.

  Or was it something else? His mind went back to what Miss Skiff had said at the very beginning about the risk of Leila being snatched back by the slavers. Could that be what had happened? And yet it was a long way to come from Upper Egypt to do that. Was a single child worth it? Wouldn’t a slaver have merely gone on to some other child, if numbers were that important? He would go to the length of coming up to Cairo only if there was something special about the child. What was so special about Leila?

  And then, as he sat there, he realized what it was. His mind went back to Selim’s reports on the conversation he had overheard in the temple at Denderah, the fears that Clarke had expressed about ‘that child’ hearing something. And seeing something, too. Him, and being able to recognize him.

  Finally, he remembered what Georgiades had heard Clarke say at the Pont Limoun in Cairo. Again the fears of being recognized, of being implicated in the arms dealing. The fears must have run deep for he had recognized Leila at once, had known that she was the same child.

  And the fears would have been reinforced, Owen now realized, by his own presence there at the caravan’s encampment. For Owen now knew that the man who had stared at him so persistently that day had been Clarke. He had not known that at the time but Clarke had known him. The Mamur Zapt was not an unknown figure in Cairo. Far from it. Clarke had recognized him and must have wondered what he was doing in Denderah. And feared that it might be something to with him. In his mind it would all have been coming together.

  And it was Owen himself who brought it together. The sight of him at Denderah would for Clarke have been a warning. And then that day at the Gare Pont Limoun the warning would have come home with force. It would have reinforced his anxieties about what Leila could reveal. And tipped Clarke into taking action.

  It was Owen himself who had triggered the kidnap.

  But at least he now knew that he had his lead. The lead that he had been looking so hard for.

  Abdul and his porters came to the warehouse just as it was growing dark. Nassir was waiting for them and showed them in. A few moments later the tall, thin figure of Clarke slipped in after them. There was a brief delay and then the porters began to come out, two by two, each pair carrying a box between them. Last of all came Nassir and Clarke, watching over them as they made their way to the madrassa.

  Georgiades was watching, too, and he saw, a little later, the porters come out of the madrassa and go across the street with Nassir to be paid. Georgiades didn’t need to go with them. He knew about this bit. Instead he waited beneath the columns of the madrassa and when Clarke came out, put his arms in a lock around his neck and waited for Owen’s men to come up and take him away.

  In his room at the Bab-el-Khalk Owen sat behind his desk. Opposite him, with his men standing over him, sat Clarke.

  ‘There is one thing you can do,’ said Owen, ‘to make things easier for yourself. Tell me where the child is.’

  Clarke started to deny all knowledge — but then looked at Owen’s face and shrugged.

  ‘For arms,’ said Owen, ‘you will receive a prison sentence. For the murder of a child, it will be worse.’

  ‘Not murder,’ said Clarke, shaking his head. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. I haven’t laid a finger on her.’

  ‘I need to see her,’ said Owen.

  Clarke shrugged again. ‘I have sent her away,’ he said.

  ‘To?’

  ‘Denderah. The slaver’s men will pick her up there.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Take her to join the others.’

  ‘If she comes to harm,’ said Owen, ‘it will be on your head, not just theirs. With the cons
equences I spoke of.’

  Clarke hesitated, then looked at his watch. ‘If you hurry,’ he said, ‘you can get there in time. The Pont Limoun. The train to Luxor leaves in forty minutes.’

  Ali and Hussein were moving the bride box yet again. This time it was to go to the court house where the trial was to be held. The order had come late, after the normal working day had ended, and Ali and Hussein had questioned it. That had taken a satisfactory amount of time but had not resulted, as they had hoped, in the job being postponed until the next day. Indeed, they were doing it in the soft warmth of a Cairo evening.

  They were just taking a shortcut through the precincts of the Pont Limoun when a girl’s voice said: ‘That’s Soraya’s box! What are you doing with it?’

  ‘Why,’ said Ali and Hussein, putting the bride box down, ‘it’s that little girl again!’

  ‘Help! Help!’ Leila cried.

  ‘Shut up!’ said the man holding her roughly by the arm. He tried to hustle her away.

  ‘Help!’ cried Leila again. ‘He’s a bad man, and he’s stolen me! And I want to go back home. I want to go back to Zeinab!’

  ‘Shut up!’ said the man.

  ‘Oh!’ said Leila. ‘He’s hurting me!’

  ‘Hey!’ said Ali and Hussein. ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘Keep out of it!’ said the man, showing them a knife.

  ‘Help! Help!’ shrieked Leila.

  Others beside the two porters began to take notice.

  ‘You let her go!’ said Ali.

  ‘She’s a friend of ours!’ said Hussein.

  Leila tried to tear herself away from the man holding her. He cuffed her head and twisted her arm. Leila lowered her face and bit him.

  The man swore and let go. Leila threw herself into the arms of Ali and Hussein.

  The man was advancing on them with his knife when suddenly there was a sharp crack. The man fell forward over the bride box.

  ‘Musa! Musa!’ cried Leila.

  Throughout the day people came and went at the madrassa, as they usually did. Some of them, as they left, were carrying packages, often rolls which might have been a prayer mat. These people were followed home by Owen’s men. By the end of the day all the guns were gone. But Owen knew who had taken them and where they had gone to. So it was easy that night to pick up both the people and the guns and take them to the Bab-el-Khalk.