The Mingrelian Conspiracy

by Michael Pearce

  ‘I think that’s more than likely,’ said Owen.

  ‘Wasted!’ said Zeinab dramatically. ‘On you!’

  ‘Not wasted; I greatly enjoy it.’

  ‘In private, yes, but not in public.’

  ‘Well, what the hell do you want us to do? Make love in the middle of Abdin Square?’

  ‘Take me to the ball.’

  ‘I am taking you to the ball. If there is one.’

  ‘You know I can’t come if I’m not properly dressed.’

  ‘You will be properly dressed. You’ve got lots of dresses. They’re all there on the rack. Look, bloody hundreds of them—’

  ‘You want to see me in rags!’

  ‘Rags! This one cost more than a year’s pay! You told me. Afterwards.’

  ‘I passed the bill to my father. He will not want to see me dressed like some parvenue. He has pride. We are like that in Egypt. Proud people. We know what is fitting. Unlike the boring, bourgeois British.’

  ‘Look, I am not going to use the Diplomatic Postbag just to send a cable to your couturier.’

  ‘Just?’ said Zeinab.

  ***

  Even the flies in the committee room seemed stupefied by the heat. This was unusual, thought Owen, since flies were normally the most active part of the population. Perhaps it was not the heat that was getting to them but committee life. The shutters of the committee room were kept closed in a vain attempt to keep the temperature down and perhaps the flies could never get out. They spent their lives in eternal committee. My God, thought Owen; what a life! For a second or two he felt quite indignant on their behalf but then the heat had its effect on him, too, and he settled back gloomily in his chair.

  ‘The itinerary first,’ said Paul. ‘Duke Nicholas will transfer to the Khedivial Yacht at Alexandria, pass through the Canal to Suez and then take the overland train to Cairo. He will spend three days in Cairo as the guest of His Royal Highness, the Khedive, and then go upriver to Luxor to view the antiquities. He will then return to Cairo and spend two days at the Palace recovering from the rigours of his journey. Then he will travel by train to Alexandria, spend a day there and depart by boat on the Thursday evening. The whole visit will last twelve days, including the two to be spent on the Royal Yacht.’

  ‘That bit should be all right from the point of view of security,’ observed the major.

  ‘He’ll be spending a good time on the water, what with the river trip,’ said McPhee.

  ‘I’ll turn to security later,’ said Paul. ‘The first question, though, is what we’re going to do with him while he’s here. The Khedive would like to reproduce as far as possible the visit of Duke Nicholas’s uncle, the Crown Prince, when he came here to open the Suez Canal.’

  ‘Out of the question!’ said Finance Department immediately. ‘Cost too much!’

  ‘“As far as possible”,’ said Paul. ‘Those are the key words, I think. Surely we can accede to His Royal Highness’s wishes to that extent? Of course, we may not be able to go as far as he would like—’

  ‘As long as we bear in mind budgetary constraints,’ said Finance Department.

  ‘Just so. Now, Mr. Abd-es-Salem is here representing the Court, and I wonder if he could tell us what His Royal Highness has in mind with respect to the programme?’

  ‘Well, last time the Khedive commissioned an opera—’

  ‘No!’ said Finance Department quickly.

  ‘—and built the new Opera House.’

  ‘My God!’ said Finance Department.

  ‘After consideration, the Khedive would not, perhaps, wish to go so far this time. But he does feel that, in view of its centrality on the previous visit, opera should have at least some part in the programme—’

  ‘Does he now?’ said Paul, sitting up.

  ‘Out of the question!’ said Finance Department. ‘Too costly!’

  ‘Oh, come!’

  ‘That was what bankrupted Egypt in the first place,’ said Finance Department.

  ‘What better thing to be bankrupted by?’ murmured Paul.

  ‘Actually, I must support the Khedive,’ said Owen, who thought there was a chance of getting a performance of Aida out of this. ‘I feel that since His Royal Highness has expressed the wish to reproduce as closely as possible the original arrangements, we ought to do the best we can to oblige him.’

  Mr. Abd-es-Salem flashed him a grateful glance.

  ‘If you’re thinking of Aida,’ said Finance Department smugly, ‘you can think again. Aida wasn’t actually performed on the original visit. It was commissioned for the opening of the Canal but wasn’t ready on time. It was performed some time after.’

  ‘All the more reason for the Grand Duke to be able to see it now,’ suggested Paul.

  ‘Aida is completely out of the question,’ said Finance Department with emphasis. ‘I have this straight from the Treasury in London.’

  ‘They actually specified there was to be no Aida?’

  ‘Certainly. Opera is something they really know about in the Treasury.’

  ‘We could dispense with the animals,’ said Paul temptingly.

  ‘Animals?’ said the major.

  ‘Live animals were a feature of the original production,’ said Finance Department. ‘Lots of them! Actually, it wouldn’t be a good idea,’ he said to Paul. ‘Suppose the Grand Duke got eaten?’

  ‘We could keep him away from them. Owen could see to that—’

  ‘No animals,’ said Finance Department firmly. ‘And no Aida, either. Of course, there is no reason why you shouldn’t choose another opera. The Treasury is not opposed to opera in principle. Far from it.’

  ‘Well, that is a helpful suggestion,’ said Paul. ‘Now—’ The Army had been fidgeting for some time.

  ‘Could we get on to the real business?’ Paul raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I thought that was the real business,’ he said.

  ‘What about security?’

  ‘We’ve got to agree on the programme first, haven’t we? Right, let’s move on. There will be a Grand Ball, of course …’

  ‘There could be difficulties,’ said Owen.

  ‘What difficulties?’

  ‘Well, dresses. That kind of thing.’ Paul glanced at his notes.

  ‘No, this has already been decided. The Consul-General’s wife—’

  ***

  ‘A March Past?’ suggested the Army, some time later.

  ‘March Past?’

  ‘The Khedive reviewing his troops.’

  ‘There may be international observers,’ said Paul. ‘I don’t think we should make our military presence too obvious. We could have a jolly procession, I suppose.’

  ‘The Khedive would like that,’ said Mr. Abd-es-Salem.

  ‘In fact, he would wish to take part in it himself. He could ride at the head with the Grand Duke in an open landau.’

  ‘Is that a good idea?’ asked Owen.

  ‘Why not?’ said Mr. Abd-es-Salem, surprised.

  ‘Because it would make it easy for someone to take a pot shot at him.’

  ‘The Khedive feels safe with his people,’ said Mr. Abd-es-Salem reprovingly.

  ‘I was thinking of the Grand Duke,’ said Owen hastily and untruly.

  ‘Surely there is no risk of that?’

  ‘Cairo is a city of many nationalities. And not all of them are sympathetic to Russia.’

  ‘Even so—’

  ‘The Balkan countries, for instance.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Mr. Abd-es-Salem thoughtfully. ‘ The Balkans!’

  ‘The Mingrelians!’ added Owen, for the benefit of the Army.

  ‘My God, yes!’ said the major. ‘The Mingrelians!’

  ‘Round them up,’ said Shearer. ‘Round them all up!’

  ‘All of them?’ said O
wen. ‘There are over twenty thousand people from various Balkan countries in Cairo alone. The place is like a miniature Balkans. It’s a potential powder keg, I can tell you. I think this visit is crazy. Why don’t we call the whole thing off?’

  ‘Call it off?’ said Mr. Abd-es-Salem, aghast. ‘His Royal Highness has set his heart on it!’

  ‘I’m afraid we’ve gone too far down the road to call it off now,’ said Paul. ‘Although I agree with you about the potential threat.’

  ‘Threat?’ said Mr. Abd-es-Salem, with considerable asperity.

  ‘Are you saying that the British can no longer maintain order? Even with an Army?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ said the major indignantly.

  ‘We can handle it,’ said Captain Shearer.

  ‘Can you?’ said Owen quickly. ‘Well, there’s a lot to be said for—’

  ‘No chance!’ said Paul firmly. ‘It has already been decided that the Mamur Zapt has overall responsibility for the security arrangements. But a good try!’ he added, turning to Owen.

  ***

  ‘You again?’ said the café owner. He was sitting with his legs heavily bandaged and propped across a chair in front of him.

  ‘I like coffee,’ said Owen.

  ‘You don’t think you could enjoy it somewhere else?’

  ‘I especially like it here.’

  ‘You get in the way, you know.’

  ‘You mean, the men won’t come while I’m here? Isn’t that a good thing?’

  ‘I don’t know. They’ll come again when you’re not here.’

  ‘I could leave someone with you.’

  ‘They’re big blokes.’

  ‘This is a big bloke.’

  ‘Hanging around all day drinking coffee?’

  ‘He could work for you. In fact, it would be better if he did. You could say he had come up from the country.’

  ‘Why don’t you just go away?’ said the café owner.

  ‘I’m like the other lot. I’m never going to go away.’ The café owner cursed softly.

  ‘You get me down,’ he said. ‘You really do.’

  ‘I’m your only way out,’ said Owen. ‘You’ll be glad of me. Later.’

  ‘A lot later,’ said the café owner. ‘When I’m in heaven.’

  ‘Even before. It’s just the next bit that’s hard.’

  ‘Why pick the hard way?’

  ‘Because if you pick the other way, it never ends. You don’t just pay once. You go on paying. You pay all the time. They come more often. And after a while they ask for more. And then more. And then more still. In the end you’re working only for them. All you’ve built up is theirs. Look, I know what it takes to build up a place like this, what it costs you. It costs you years of your life and you’ve only got one life. Going to give it all away, now, are you?’

  ‘I’m not giving anything away,’ said the café owner. ‘But I’m still thinking.’

  ‘Think on. Take the long view. You’ve had to take the long view, haven’t you, all your life? Otherwise you’d never have got where you are. Think long now. My way is hard at first but then there’s an end to it. The other way is easy today and hard tomorrow. And tomorrow goes on for a long time.’

  ‘The only thing is,’ said the café owner, ‘that I like the idea of there being tomorrows.’

  ‘The man I put in is always there. He sleeps under the table. He doesn’t go home at night.’ Owen had a sudden pang of conscience. Selim wouldn’t care for this bit. ‘He never leaves you,’ he said, nevertheless, determinedly.

  ‘And he works?’

  ‘A big, strong man.’

  ‘You’re not doing this for my sake,’ said the café owner.

  ‘Of course not. There are other cafés.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask them?’

  ‘I’m asking you. I need someone like you.’

  ‘Stubborn?’

  ‘Greedy,’ said Owen. ‘Greedy to cling on to his own.’ The café owner laughed.

  ‘Well, you’ve got the right man,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe in giving money away.’

  ‘When it’s hard earned, it’s not easily given.’

  ‘That, too, is true,’ said the man. ‘Well. I’ll think about it.’

  ‘While you’re thinking,’ said Owen, ‘I could be doing something. If you would just give me a start.’

  ‘What is it you want to know?’

  ‘The name.’

  The gangs usually left their name. It was normal, for example, to sign extortion notes. Not that the name in itself meant much. Arab taste for the lurid produced such names as ‘The Red Sword’, ‘Hand of Blood’ or ‘The Red Eye’; but the readiness of the groups to give their names made it easy to ascribe activities to the group and Nikos now had a file on most of them.

  The name would probably be enough to tell Owen what kind of gang he was dealing with. He would probably be able to tell, for example, whether the gang was a straightforward criminal one or whether it was a terrorist one arising out of a political club.

  Cairo seethed with political discussion, most of which took place openly in the cafés. You could have a good argument any night of the week almost anywhere. Some of it, however, took place privately in clubs specially formed for the purpose. These still met in cafés—that was what Cairo cafés were for!— but now it was in an inner room where members could more properly indulge their taste for the melodramatic. There were dozens of such clubs in Cairo and no dashing young effendi could afford to admit that he had never been to one.

  Most of the clubs were heavily Nationalist and some were revolutionary. Of these, a small minority was committed to violent action now and sought to finance their activities by engaging in the protection racket.

  ‘I don’t know their name,’ said the café owner.

  ‘It would help me a lot. It could help you a lot.’

  ‘Help me to get my neck broken. No thanks.’

  ***

  Another café, later. This was the life, Owen decided. It had always been a desire of his to obliterate completely the line between work and play, so that work would seem like play and play would carry the moral justification of work. In Cairo, where business was habitually transacted in cafés, that was easy. You had to meet a colleague? Where better than in a café? Offices were hot and hard edged, uncongenial to the Arab, who liked to pour the syrup of emotion over everything. They lacked conviviality, whereas to the Arab, conviviality was all.

  At the table next to him two men stood up, shook hands, picked up their decorated leather briefcases and left. They had been discussing a contract for the delivery of sesame. The man remaining turned immediately, greeted some acquaintance at another table, pulled his chair across and lunged into an animated discussion of the merits of some Ghawazee singers at a place near the Clot Bey. So easily did business turn to pleasure. So, too, did it turn to politics. At the table on his other side some young effendi were arguing hotly about Egypt’s place in the world, asking why cultural importance, as evinced by the constant flood of tourists, was not reflected in political significance.

  Across the tables he suddenly caught sight of Mahmoud and waved an arm. Mahmoud, however, had already seen him and was weaving his way through the tables to join him.

  ‘A relief!’ he said, dropping into a chair. ‘I was in court all morning. And then some papers I need for tomorrow hadn’t arrived so I spent the afternoon chasing them. And then when they did arrive they weren’t what I wanted, so I had to start all over again. I’ve only just got away!’

  No other lawyer, Owen suspected, whether Egyptian or British, would work through the heat of the Egyptian afternoon. Mahmoud, however, was a perfectionist and couldn’t imagine going into court unless he was absolutely sure of his ground; and absolutely meant absolutely. They talked for a while about the case Mahmoud was engag
ed on and then Mahmoud asked him what he was busy with.

  Owen told him about the protection racket.

  ‘Cafés, now, is it?’ said Mahmoud. He knew, of course, about the gangs. If Owen’s work reached the stage of prosecution, it would be the Parquet who would handle it.

  Owen nodded.

  ‘A new target. Rather a tempting one,’ he said, looking around. ‘Fat pickings.’

  ‘Political?’ asked Mahmoud. He knew about the clubs, too. Indeed, he almost certainly went to one himself.

  ‘I don’t know. I wish I could find out.’

  ‘From my point of view it doesn’t matter much. Crime is crime.’

  ‘It matters to me. If they’re doing it for money, it ends there. If they’re doing it for political reasons, you ask what it’s going to issue in later. Bombs?’

  ‘You think this new burst of activity might be related to some particular issue that they have in mind?’

  ‘I’m wondering.’

  Mahmoud, interested, sat thinking.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I can see it makes a difference to you. That is because you are always thinking about prevention. Well, that is good. Forestalling violence must always be good. So long as you yourself keep within the law. The law must always be supreme. Even expediency, which is, of course, the justification you can always cite, must bow to the law. Otherwise there is injustice, and that is a worse crime than violence, for violence is merely a fault of the individual, whereas injustice is a fault in the society.’

  Mahmoud was a great legalist. He believed passionately in the law, which, of course, left him in rather an isolated position in Egypt. It even created difficulties for him as a Nationalist because, while it was easy enough to oppose the illegal British and the corrupt regime of the Pashas which had preceded it, he also opposed extra-legal action, such as violence. Peaceful demonstrations, he believed in; but then, as Owen frequently said to him (they spent many happy hours in cafés arguing the point), what demonstration in Egypt ever stayed peaceful?

  ‘Everyone is subject to the law,’ repeated Mahmoud stubbornly. ‘Even the British,’ he said sternly.

  It gave Owen an opportunity.