The Last Cut mz-11

by Michael Pearce

  Zeinab, however, was anti-French today. She had some intellectual periodicals under her arm, French, but different from the ones she usually took. She tapped one of them significantly.

  ‘Napoleon was against women,’ she said darkly. ‘I’ve been reading.’

  ‘Well, yes, but you’ve got to make allowances for the time.’ Zeinab took no notice.

  ‘It’s in the Code Napoleon,’ she said.

  Which was still the basis of the Egyptian legal code. When the Khedive Ismail had wanted to reform and modernize the Egyptian legal system he had simply adopted the Code wholesale.

  ‘I don’t think you can blame him entirely,’ objected Owen. ‘Islamic law-’

  Zeinab brooded.

  ‘Islamic law is men’s law,’ she said. ‘The trouble is, when you turn to the alternative, what do you find? Men’s law.’

  ‘Law is the same for everyone,’ said Owen. ‘If you commit a murder, you get hanged for it. Never mind whether you’re a man or a woman.’

  ‘Yes, but some things affect women more than they do men.’

  ‘Have you been talking to Labiba Latifa?’ demanded Owen. ‘Circumcision, for instance,’ said Zeinab.

  ‘That’s social practice, not law. Why don’t you talk to Mahmoud?’

  ‘I will,’ said Zeinab.

  Owen had not intended to go back to the Gamaliya that day but when he returned to his office, he found Georgiades waiting for him. He had found out, he thought, the person whom Babikr had gone to see.

  ‘He’s a fiki,’ he said. ‘Several of the workmen go and see him. He used to live at their village but when he got old, he moved up here to be with his son. They still remember him in the village, and when the men come up here for the Inundation, they always take him something.’

  ‘A fiki?’ said Owen. ‘Then he might know of the oath, even if it wasn’t to him.’

  A fiki was a professional reader, or singer, of the Koran and as a person of (some) learning and (some) holiness was the sort of person you might go to if you wanted a witness of authority when you were swearing an oath.

  He lived in a small back street in the Gamaliya not far from the mosque. The son, slightly startled, showed them in.

  ‘It is,’ Owen explained, ‘to do with a man known to you, who used to listen to you in your village.’

  The fiki nodded.

  ‘The men come to you, I know, each year when they are up here for the Inundation, bringing greetings from the village.’ The fiki nodded again.

  ‘Was Babikr among them?’

  ‘Babikr!’ said the fiki.

  ‘You know?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Was he among those who came to you?’

  The fiki thought for a moment.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wondered if he had talked of an oath?’

  The fiki thought again.

  ‘I do not think so.’

  ‘It might have been one he had taken in the village. Do you recall such an oath?’

  ‘He took various oaths. All do.’

  ‘Do you remember the substance of the oaths?’

  ‘To do with wedding settlements. There was an ox once, I think. These were the usual foolish disputes.’

  ‘Do you recall them?’

  ‘They are not worth recalling.’

  ‘Yet Babikr, I think, was not a man to take them lightly.’

  ‘He was not,’ agreed the fiki. He warmed slightly. ‘He was ever true to his word.’

  ‘And would have kept to it,’ said Owen, ‘even if what he had committed himself to was not wise.’

  ‘Very probably.’ The fiki sat thinking for a moment. ‘Why do you ask these things?’ he said suddenly.

  ‘I think he committed himself to something that was not wise and then found he could not go back on it.’

  ‘You think the attack on the dam was not wise?’

  ‘Well, no,’ said Owen, startled. ‘It was an attack on all. It was a blow at the common good.’

  ‘I, on the contrary, think it was wise,’ said the fiki. ‘For what these new dams have brought us is not good but harm.’

  ‘But, surely-’

  ‘Harm!’ repeated the fiki emphatically. ‘They have brought us ill-being, not well-being. When I was young everyone in the village was strong and well. They needed to be, perhaps, because the Pashas bore down hard in those days. But they were not sick. Now they are sick from birth. The children grow up with red eyes. The men are listless in the fields. Is that good? Is that as it should be? That is what the dams have brought us. And you say that Babikr was not wise!’

  ‘The dams have brought abundance,’ said Owen.

  ‘But at a price,’ said the fiki.

  ‘It is not the abundance that is wrong,’ said Owen, ‘but how it is used.’

  The fiki shrugged.

  ‘Certainly it never gets to us.’

  ‘It is not the dams that are bad but the people.’

  ‘You don’t see the people,’ said the fiki, ‘but you see the dams.’

  And so you would strike at them?’

  ‘They have destroyed a balance. In the old days there was one crop a year and the people were healthy. Now there are three and the people are sick. I would restore the balance.’

  Owen was silent.

  ‘Newness!’ said the fiki. ‘It is always newness! Why do we need these new dams? Were not the old good enough? Was not there water in the fields then as there is now? It is the same everywhere. They tell us this is the last year they are going to make the Cut. They are going to fill the canal in, people say, and put a tram-way on top of it. To what end? The canal brought water to the city, to us here in the Gamaliya. And now they are going to fill it in. You cannot drink tram-ways.’

  ‘There will still be water, indeed, better water. They are building pipes-’

  ‘Pipes!’ said the old man contemptuously. ‘Where once there was the canal itself, which all could see! It is not the Cut that they should be ending but all these new dams!’

  ‘All do not think as you do,’ said Owen quietly.

  He got to his feet.

  ‘I had hoped that you would help me to ease Babikr’s load,’ he said, ‘for I do not think that his alone was the hand that broke the dam.’

  The fiki looked troubled.

  ‘I would help Babikr if I could,’ he said. ‘But I do not know to whom he swore the oath.’

  As Owen was going out of the door he turned back to the old man.

  ‘Did Babikr bring you flowers?’ he asked.

  ‘Flowers?’ said the fiki incredulously, looking at Owen as if he had gone out of his mind.

  As Owen was crossing the Place Bab-el-Khalk, a Parquet bearer came running up to him.

  ‘Effendi! A message. For you. Urgent!’

  It was from Mahmoud. It said:

  ‘Ali Khedri arrested by local police. Involved in fracas.

  Now at Gamaliya police station. Shall wait there for you!

  Chapter 9

  ‘I don’t want to see him!’ shouted Ali Khedri. ‘I don’t ever want to see him. Why does he come to see me?’

  ‘He came to offer you the hand of friendship,’ said Owen reprovingly.

  ‘I spit in his hand! He kills my wife, he kills my daughter, he takes my land! And then he talks of friendship!’

  ‘Come, this is wild talk,’ said Owen. ‘If he has done you injury, he wished to make amends.’

  ‘What amends can there be after what he has done?’

  ‘All that is in the past.’

  ‘You have seen my house. You know how I live. Is that in the past?’

  All is not the fault of the past.’

  ‘I tried to put the past behind me and then he sent his son!’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘He sent his boy.’

  ‘Suleiman?’

  ‘Is that his name? I know the Devil has many names but did not know that was one!’

  ‘This is wild talk. What has
the boy done?’

  ‘He took my daughter. Was it not enough to take my land? Did he have to take my daughter too?’

  ‘If the land was taken, it is nothing to do with the boy.’ And the boy is nothing to do with the father?’

  ‘Not in this. The father did not know. He was afraid to tell his father. As Leila was afraid to tell you.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that? That the Devil does not know his works?’

  ‘This talk of the Devil is foolish. The boy’s love was innocent. He did but look upon her.’

  ‘And she looked back. Is that innocent, too?’

  ‘She did but look.’

  ‘And smile. Is that innocent also?’

  ‘With a pure heart, yes. And hers was pure.’

  And talk. That, too, is innocent?’

  ‘It was but talk. They meant nothing by it.’

  ‘He meant something by it.’

  ‘No more than any young boy does.’

  ‘He knew who she was. And you still say he meant nothing by it?’

  ‘He recognized a playmate from his childhood. That was all.’

  And he wanted to play with her again!’

  ‘His heart was as innocent as hers. They were both as children.’

  ‘He knew who she was and she knew who he was and you call that innocent?’

  ‘They wished to put the past behind them. As you should, too.’

  ‘You think he wished to put the past behind him?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Then why did he seek her out?’

  ‘He did not seek her out. He saw her by chance.’

  ‘In the whole of this big city, where no man knows another and there are a million faces, he found her by chance?’

  ‘I think it more likely than that he should seek her out.’

  ‘You do not know him,’ said Ali Khedri with conviction. ‘Nor his father.’

  When Mahmoud had arrived at the water-carrier’s house he had found it empty and the whole quarter in uproar. Shortly before, the police had removed Ali Khedri to the local caracol, a consequence less of his attack on Suleiman’s father-the police took a relaxed view of street brawls-than of his inability to calm down. In the end, the police, exasperated, had been obliged to clip him over the head with a baton; but then, as they had explained to Mahmoud, they could not leave him lying there, ‘lest his adversary return and stab him,’ and so had taken him to the police station.

  Indifferent to finer points of justice, they had taken Suleimans father as well, and had been on the point of thrusting him into the cell with Ali Khedri when Mahmoud, fortunately, had arrived.

  He and Owen exchanged glances. They had interrogated many times together and did not need to speak. Mahmoud took over.

  ‘Why should he seek her out?’ he asked.

  ‘To destroy me.’

  ‘You make too much of this,’ said Mahmoud. ‘It was chance that brought them together.’

  ‘Was it chance that brought him to the Gamaliya:’ demanded Ali Khedri. ‘Was it by chance that he was always creeping around? Spying on me, so that I could never go out of my door without him watching?’

  ‘He came but to gaze on your daughter. He was but a lovesick calf.’

  ‘Oh, was that it?’ said Ali Khedri, affecting surprise. ‘Was that all it was? And I thought he was seeking a way to destroy me!’

  ‘This is sick fancy!’ said Mahmoud.

  ‘Well, would that not have been enough?’ whispered Ali Khedri, more to himself than to Mahmoud. ‘Without the other?’

  ‘What other?’

  Ali Khedri took no notice.

  ‘Would that not have been enough to end my hope?’

  ‘Hope?’

  ‘Of escape,’ said Ali Khedri. ‘Of life. Of not ending life like a dog.’

  ‘Through marrying your daughter to Omar Fayoum?’

  ‘It was there,’ whispered Ali Khedri. ‘There in my hand. And she took it from me.’

  ‘She did not take it from you,’ said Mahmoud. ‘You took it from yourself.’

  ‘She betrayed me.’

  ‘She did not betray you. She sent the boy away.’

  Ali Khedri made a gesture of dismissal.

  ‘It was too late,’ he said. ‘By then the whole world knew. Omar Fayoum knew.’

  ‘The boy wished to come to you. Fie wanted to ask you for her hand. He would have given you more than Omar Fayoum.’ The water-carrier smiled bitterly.

  ‘You think so?’ he said.

  ‘He would have persuaded his father. His father loves him.’

  ‘Loves him?’ said Ali Khedri, almost as if he were encountering the words for the first time.

  ‘His father came to you,’ Mahmoud reminded him, ‘seeking to make amends.’

  Ali Khedri stared at him for a moment and then, very deliberately, leaned to one side and spat.

  ‘That is what I think of his amends,’ he said.

  He had not injured Suleiman’s father seriously. The neighbours, alarmed by the shouts, had come running and prised Ali Khedri’s hands from his throat. Mahmoud asked him if he wished to press charges.

  ‘What would be the point?’ he said.

  (5’tsss’t?)

  Owen and Mahmoud made a tour of the Gamaliya. The quarter was quiet now. In front of Ali Khedri’s house, however, there was still a small knot of people. Mahmoud went across to them.

  ‘Return to your houses!’ he said. ‘There has been enough bad work for one night.’

  ‘What of Ali Khedri?’ someone asked.

  ‘He stays in the caracol for the night.’

  ‘It was not his fault. Why did that man have to come pestering?’

  ‘He came to offer the hand of friendship.’

  One of the men spat derisively into the darkness. Owen thought it was Fatima’s husband. He could see now that the group consisted largely of water-carriers.

  ‘If he means friendship, why is that boy always creeping around?’ said one of them.

  ‘He is but a love-sick calf. His heart had gone to Leila.’

  ‘Leila is dead now,’ said someone, ‘and he still creeps around.’

  ‘Tell him to keep out of the Gamaliya!’ called someone from the back of the group. Again Owen thought it was Fatima’s husband.

  ‘Let there be no trouble!’ said Mahmoud sternly. ‘Or others will find themselves joining Ali Khedri in the caracol!’

  The group dispersed. Two of them crossed to Owen’s side of the road. They had not seen him before. One of the men was Fatima’s husband. He looked at Owen with hate in his face. And you, too!’ he said.

  ‘Effendi,’ said Yussef, Owen’s orderly, diffidently as he came into his office the next morning, ‘I think you may need this.’

  He put a small embroidered pouch on Owen’s desk.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It is a magic charm. My wife has sewn it and inside there is a holy stone that the Sheikh has blessed.’

  ‘Well, thank her very much-thank you very much, but- exactly why do I need it now?’

  ‘If it was just the Jews, that would be nothing. They are cunning and devious, it is true, but then, you are cunning and devious also. But when you are up against this-?’

  ‘One moment,’ said Owen; ‘What am I up against?’

  Yussef laid his forefinger alongside his nose.

  ‘Let us not speak the word. But, Effendi, I am with you. We are all with you. I said to my wife: “Now he is really up against it!” And she said: “Let us pray for him.” And then she thought of the magic amulet. “Let us do what we can,” she said; for we all want the Cut to be saved. Her especially, for, as I have said, she depends on it to have her babies.’

  ‘That is very kind of you, Yussef. But I don’t quite follow… Exactly what-?’

  ‘The regulator was one thing. Bad enough-believe me, Effendi, I know what water means, my family comes from the Delta-but who would have thought it would have gone for the Cut? I said, it must be out of its
mind! But the Sheikh said, no, it was not out of its mind, it was just very angry. That’s because there’s a lot wrong with the world, and especially with the dams. We’ve taken things a bit too far, it’s all got out of hand, and that’s what it’s doing, just reminding us. Well, I can understand that with the regulator, but why go for the Cut? It wouldn’t have hurt it, would it, just to have held off for another week.’

  ‘Just a minute, Yussef, who or what is “it”? Who, or what, is going for the Cut?’

  ‘Why, Effendi, you saw for yourself. It was having a go at The Bride. The Lizard Man!’

  The newspapers, too, were giving the Lizard Man a new lease of life. They were full of him. The unfortunate Babikr was quite forgotten as the link was made with the attempt on the Manu-fiya Regulator. One or two of the papers mentioned him as a junior accomplice or surrogate for the Lizard Man but most of the papers lost sight of him entirely, treating the incident as an unsolved mystery. Or, rather, as a mystery where one knew exactly who had perpetuated the crime but just, somehow, wasn’t able to lay hands on him.

  And here he was popping up again, with vaguely heroic accretions, a sort of Robin Hood perpetually thumbing his nose at the law! And, like Robin Hood, in some strange way a representative of the poor. Owen realized, as he read, that the figure was capturing popular doubt about the new dams, not so much resentment at them as worry and suspicion, the feeling that, as the fiki had said, a balance had been disturbed.

  The belief that the Lizard Man had now attacked the Cut had, though, divided as well as aroused public opinion. While there were doubts about the dams, there were none about the Cut; and so with many people the attack‘ on the Cut was transformed into something positive. It did not mean, they held, that the Lizard Man was against the Cut. On the contrary, he was for it. This was just his way of registering his displeasure at the proposal to end it.

  Whichever view one took, though, Owen noted with satisfaction, it had the effect of displacing the Jews from the scene. He was half minded to go down to the Muslim gravediggers and tell them that since the Lizard Man was taking a hand, they had better stay out of it!