The Mingrelian Conspiracy

by Michael Pearce

  ‘Let’s get this straight: you were going to squeeze money out of Mustapha and then give it to—?’

  ‘Hussein’s friend. Don’t ask me why. Maybe Hussein owed him a favour.’

  ‘Can you tell me about this friend?’

  ‘Well, yes, I certainly don’t owe him a favour. We met him at Ali’s. It’s a little coffee house not far from the ferry. It was all set up, really. I mean, there wasn’t any bargaining about terms. He knew that we were going to do what he asked. All he had to do was tell us what he wanted.’

  ‘And what did he want?’

  ‘Just to call on Mustapha and get the money.’

  ‘Have you any idea why it was Mustapha you were to call on? Was there anything special about him?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think he had just seen this place and thought it would be a good one to call on. The important thing was the money. He wanted it quick. I said: “Why don’t you break in somewhere and steal it?” But he said no, that wouldn’t do, protection was easier. And then he named the sum he wanted. I said: “That’s ridiculous!” And he said: “That’s what I want.” And I said: “Look, you’re not going about it in the right way. A little at a time but lots of times, that’s what you want. It makes it easier for everyone.” But he said no, he needed the money now. It had to be upfront in a lump sum. Well, it didn’t matter to us, it was easier in a way because it meant we only had to do the café once. But it was a bit odd, if you know what I mean. It’s not the way you usually go about business like this, not the way we do it, at any rate. It’s sort of, well, amateur.’

  ‘But that’s what he wanted?’

  ‘That’s what he wanted, so that’s what he got. Or would have got.’

  ‘What sort of man was he?’

  ‘Ah, well, now, I’m not sure. I…well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘You could tell me a bit. After all, you don’t owe him anything. It’s the other way round if anything. He owes you something.’

  ‘Well, maybe. But I don’t know that I could tell you much, anyway. I only saw him the once.’

  ‘But you saw him. So what sort of man was he?’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t an Arab, for a start. That’s another thing I didn’t like. “Let’s stick to our own,” I said. “Then we know where we are.”’

  ‘A Copt, was he?’

  ‘Oh, no, no. Not as bad as that.’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t know what he was, really. But Sayeed—he was with me— said that he thought he was one of those funny people, Christians, you know, thin faces, dark hair—’

  ‘Armenians?’

  ‘No, no. The other side of Turkey.’

  ‘Georgians?’ said Mahmoud.

  ***

  They took Omar to the Der. He looked around him uneasily.

  ‘Don’t like these places much,’ he said.

  ‘Keep your galabeeyah over your face,’ advised Mahmoud.

  ‘Then no one will recognize you.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ said Omar. ‘It’s the place. All tunnels. All darkness. Like being in a grave.’

  Al-Mo’allaka was dark, too. The lamps had been turned down and the air was dense with incense. In one corner there was a small light where the man was working. They went across.

  ‘I come again,’ said Owen. ‘I have brought someone who would like to see your work.’

  The man bowed acknowledgement, then lifted the lamp so that Mahmoud could see the ikon better. The gold seemed to stand out in the darkness, to glow with a deep, remarkable light. Mahmoud examined it attentively.

  ‘This, here…’ he said, pointing.

  The workman peered at the spot. His face showed clear in the light of the lamp.

  Owen, holding on to Omar, felt him shake his head. They went downstairs to the workshop.

  ‘Still at it?’ said Owen.

  ‘For another week,’ said the workman.

  Mahmoud picked up a piece of board with paint on it and stepped out into the sunlight to see it better.

  The workman looked up.

  ‘Just trying out the colours,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to get them right.’

  ‘How do you get this?’ said Mahmoud, pointing.

  The man went over to stand beside him. Again, Owen felt Omar shake his head.

  As they came out, Georgiades materialized beside them.

  ‘A leather-worker’s next,’ he said. They followed him through a forest of arches and then into an inner courtyard. Along one wall there was another series of arches, each of which held a small workshop. Several of them were tailors. They sat on the broad counter of their shop sewing by hand. Another was heavy with the smell of spices. As they came to the one at the end there was the smell of burnt leather. Two men were busy at a fire at the back. They looked up as Mahmoud went in. Omar shook his head.

  Georgiades led them on.

  Towards the end of the morning Owen began to feel that it was a long time since he had seen the sunlight. He sometimes felt like that in the Bab-el-Khalk but there, although the shutters were closed against the heat, the darkness was never quite as absolute and oppressive as it was here. Everyone worked by lamplight. It was as if they were all moles inhabiting some underground gallery.

  Omar shook his head to all the Georgians he was shown. Owen began to wonder if this was not after all a wild goose chase, if he had brought Mahmoud and Omar here in pursuit of a mere chimera of coincidence.

  Georgiades stopped.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A bookbinder’s. It used to be Sorgos’s.’ He looked at Owen. ‘I think you’d better stay outside,’ he said.

  Owen shrugged and watched Mahmoud go in with Omar.

  ‘Why do I have to stay outside?’

  ‘Because the person in there might recognize you. And wonder.’

  It was some little time before the two came out.

  ‘Interesting books,’ said Mahmoud. ‘They do a lot of work for the Law School Library.’

  They walked on round a corner and then up some steps and then, to his surprise, Owen found himself high up on one of the old Roman walls of the fortress and looking down on the small courtyard of the Mo’allaka.

  ‘Well?’ said Owen. Mahmoud nodded.

  ‘Djugashvili,’ he said.

  ***

  On his way back to the Bab-el-Khalk, cutting through side streets, Owen came upon a riot. The street was jammed with people shaking their fists and shouting. There was a crash of collapsing stalls, agitated shouts, accompanied, strangely enough, by bleating. Two sheep shot out from under the feet of the crowd and ran off distractedly down the road. More agitated shouts and then a small boy shot likewise from under the feet of the crowd and ran off in pursuit. More splintering of woodwork and now some things were being thrown. Small objects, stones? Already red.

  Owen came to a halt. He had thought at first that this was merely an ordinary traffic dispute, caused, say, by a man carrying a bed on a donkey, the donkey, small, the bed big and lying flat on the donkey’s back, the ends protruding across the street, the man, again, big, sitting on top of the bed, meeting, say, a forage camel, grumpy, huge loads of berseem slung on either side of its back, so huge that they, too, spread out across the street, both animals unwieldy and neither driver able, or inclined, to go back, the exchange of insults egged on by admiring onlookers, developing partisanship and, in no time at all, tumult. Despite the ferocity of the rhetoric and the postures that the would-be combatants took up, such things usually sor ted themselves out peacefully when everybody had had their fun. But this looked different. The blood—

  Or was it blood? And were the missiles stones? Or were they—yes, tomatoes! From the upset stall, perhaps. Thrown in rage—was that right?—by the offended stall owner? What was all this about?

  At the heart of the dispute there appeared to be two
men, held back by supporters but straining to throw themselves on each other, insults streaming through foaming lips.

  Owen pushed his way through the throng and came out beside them. He found himself in front of an Arab coffee house, the owner of which, his face perspiring profusely, was trying desperately to pacify the two men.

  ‘What is all this?’ said Owen sternly.

  The proprietor grabbed at him with relief.

  ‘Effendi! Oh, Effendi, these two men—!’ Owen turned on them.

  ‘Stop that!’ he barked. ‘Any more nonsense from you and you’ll be in the caracol!’

  One of them quietened down. The other went on shouting. Owen caught him by the folds of his galabeeyah.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ he said threateningly. ‘I said quieten down!’

  He lifted the man up on to his toes and shook him.

  ‘That’s better.’ He released the man. ‘Now, what’s all this about?’

  The crowd calmed down. The proprietor pushed forward.

  ‘Effendi, these two men—scoundrels, rascals, vagabonds! They started it.’

  The two men turned on him in unison.

  ‘Liar! Thief! You started it!’

  ‘I started it?’ said the proprietor, stepping back hurriedly.

  ‘Yes, you started it. Everything was all right until you started mucking about!’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that—’ began the other man.

  ‘I just thought it was time for a change, that’s all!’ said the proprietor, sweating.

  ‘Well, you’ve got change, haven’t you?’ said one of the protagonists belligerently. ‘Him, or me?’

  ‘Isn’t that enough?’ demanded the other man.

  ‘Well, no. It’s either him or it’s you. Either Abu Zeyd or Sultan Baybars.’

  Owen saw now that both men were storytellers.

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘I’m telling you. People would like a change.’

  ‘In the stories of Abu Zeyd there is inexhaustible variety.’

  ‘Well, not quite inexhaustible—’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ said the other man swiftly. ‘They are a bit the same. Whereas the stories of Sultan Baybars—’

  ‘We’ve heard them all before,’ said the proprietor, wiping his face. ‘We want new ones.’

  ‘New ones!’

  ‘Well, yes, new ones. Now, this new fellow—’

  ‘A charlatan!’

  ‘A fake!’

  ‘No art!’

  ‘No feeling!’

  ‘Yes, but they’re new. We’ve not heard the stories before. He’s got a bit of imagination, this bloke has.’

  ‘Imagination!’

  ‘You don’t want imagination. What you want is tradition. You want to know where you are.’

  ‘Isn’t there room for you all?’ asked Owen. ‘One of you one day, the other the next?’

  ‘Ah, that’s how it starts. But then you get somebody else in, and then another, and before you know where you are, your livelihood’s gone. You’ve got to make a stand!’

  ‘There’s too many coming into the profession, if you ask me. Every time you go to a café these days you’ve got competition.’

  ‘And it’s not from people you know, it’s from these new men!’

  ‘Upstarts!’

  ‘No tradition!’

  ‘No training!’

  ‘Stories from the gutter!’

  ‘They undermine the dignity of the profession!’

  ‘Dignity!’ said the proprietor. ‘You lot?’

  ***

  ‘One day, Rice Pudding went up on to the roof to hang out the washing and when she had finished, she sat down among the bean plants to rest from her labours. Fancying herself concealed, she took off her veil to cool her face. Now it so happened that in the house next to hers, there lived a handsome youth who, that very afternoon, had gone up on to the roof to air himself among the tomato plants and cucumber flowers and melons. He should have been happy but he was sad at heart. He took two melons in his hands.’

  ‘“Alas,” he said, “these are warm and round and inviting as the breasts of a beautiful maiden. But where is there a beautiful maiden for me?”

  ‘At that very moment he looked across the roof and saw Rice Pudding sitting in her bower.’

  ‘He let the melons fall.

  ‘“Light of my life!” he said. “Delight of my days! Hope of my heart! Dream of my dreams!”

  ‘Unfortunately, in his ecstasy, he spoke so loudly that Rice Pudding heard him and took fright.

  ‘“You have seen what you should not have seen,” she said, and ran back down below.

  ‘Every day after that the youth went up on to the roof and hid among the tomato plants and hoped that Rice Pudding would come again. For many days she did not but then one day, when it was very hot, she said to herself. “Oh, how I would like to cool my face! Surely, if I sit among the bean plants he will not see me?”’

  ‘ These women!’ said Selim from the doorway. ‘Talk themselves into anything!’

  Some women in the crowd hushed him indignantly. The storyteller gave him a cold look and then went on:

  ‘So she went up on to the roof and sat among the bean flowers. And after a while she took off her veil. The youth could not contain himself.

  ‘“Flower among the flowers!” he called. “Beauty among the beautiful! Bestow the brilliance of your eyes upon him who worships you!”

  ‘Rice Pudding started up with surprise.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ said Selim. ‘I’ll bet!’

  The storyteller paused ostentatiously but then allowed himself to be persuaded to continue.

  ‘“What is this?” she said. “A man’s voice? A man’s eyes!”

  ‘And she made to rush from the roof.

  ‘“Stay!” cried the youth. “Oh, stay! Heart of my heart, take not your light from me! All I ask is permission to woo thee honourably!”

  ‘“Alas!” said Rice Pudding. “That can never be!”

  ‘“My house is honourable, my family rich. How, then, can your father object?”

  ‘“It is not that,” said Rice Pudding sadly. “It is not that.”’

  The repetition, delivered in a faltering cadence, was felt by his audience to be a fine touch. It murmured appreciatively. Even Selim was impressed.

  ‘“What then can it be?”

  ‘“I have lost,” said Rice Pudding, “that which I would have kept.”’

  ‘Already?’ said Selim, aghast. ‘The bitch!’

  ‘“My name,” said Rice Pudding, “has been taken from me.”

  ‘“Your good name? But—?”

  ‘“Not my good name,” said Rice Pudding, a little crossly. “My name. My actual name. It ran away.”

  ‘“I am bemused,” said the youth.

  ‘“Well, that is understandable,” said Rice Pudding kindly. “But you can see the difficulty.”

  ‘“If that is all,” said the youth, recovering, “then it is nothing. I will go out and find the name. And when I find it, I will return it to you. What is yours will be yours. But after that I shall marry you. And then what is yours will be mine.”’

  ‘Oh, very good!’ said Selim, applauding vigorously. The crowd, too, was much taken by the rhetorical inversions.

  The storyteller bowed acknowledgement, got up off the mastaba, and sent a boy round with the bowl.

  ***

  ‘Tell me, Mustapha,’ said Owen, sipping his coffee, ‘how did you come to get a storyteller such as this? For he is neither an Abu Zeyd man nor a Sultan Baybars man.’

  ‘He’s all right, isn’t he? Good for business. A bit different.’

  ‘How did you come by him?’

  ‘Well, I was sitting in here one day w
hen a man came in, an effendi, like yourself. At that time I had one of the old storytellers, an Abu Zeyd man, I think he was. Well, this effendi listened to his story and afterwards he beckoned me over.

  ‘“A café like this which is going somewhere,” he said, “needs something a bit different. Have you ever thought of getting a new storyteller?” “Well,” I said, “they’re all the same, really, aren’t they? The stories are all the same and they don’t amount to much. To tell the truth, I hardly listen to them nowadays.” “That’s just the point,” he said. “You don’t listen to them and nor does anybody else. They’re hardly a draw, are they? Now suppose you got somebody telling new stories; they’d come and listen to him, wouldn’t they?” “Well, they might,” I said, “but really what they come here for is coffee and a bit of chat, a bit of company, you know, and a breath of cool air.”

  ‘Well, he laughed at that. “All the same,” he said, “you could do with a new attraction. Bring in one or two more.” Well, you know, there was something in what he said. Business builds up for a bit, you know, and then it stagnates. “I could put you in touch with someone,” he said. “Abdul Hosein wouldn’t like that,” I said—Abdul was the storyteller I had at the time, the one that we’d just been listening to. “Whose money are we talking about?” he said. “His or yours?”’

  ‘And so Abdul Hosein went?’ said Owen.

  ‘He certainly did. Kicked up a bit of a fuss about it. Said he had friends who wouldn’t like it. I mentioned that to the new storyteller. “I’ve got friends, too,” he said, and smiled. “Yes,” I said, “but how many? He’s an Abu Zeyd man and there’re a lot of them.” “There’s a lot of me, too,” he said. “We’re a new lot. We’re growing fast. You don’t want to get stuck with the old lot, not now, when the competition’s hotting up.” He had something there. Anyway, I kept him on.’