He shifted himself in his chair. The suffragi, correctly interpreting a change of mood, hastily passed Nuri another cup of tea and did not offer to do the same for Owen.
‘The fact is,’ continued Nuri, ‘that I have a few problems myself just at the moment. The cotton crop, you know. The idle scoundrels on my estates have let the seed deteriorate. Yes—’ he looked at Owen with a frown—‘deteriorate. The yield has fallen off to the point at which I am seriously considering whether I can afford to go to Cannes this year.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’
‘Well, it is unfortunate. I was particularly hoping to meet a friend, a lady, in fact, an American lady, you might know her—’ Owen did know her—‘and she has somewhat expensive tastes.’
‘That’s, actually, rather the situation with Zeinab.’
‘But my dear fellow,’ said Nuri, shocked, ‘you wouldn’t want her to be content with the second-rate. That’s not her at all.’
‘No, it certainly isn’t. But the problem is finding the money.’
‘Exactly!’ cried Nuri, pounding his knee. ‘You’ve described my problem exactly!’
The suffragi, relieved that things were going better, poured them both cups of tea. Owen’s, however, tasted bitter.
‘My pay, you see, as a captain—’
‘Pitiful. I’ve said so to the Khedive himself. Government service is grossly underpaid, I said. It’s putting temptation in their way.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘It was when I had just become a Minister myself. You can’t expect me to become rich on this, I said! But, of course, I hadn’t understood. An old friend took me aside afterwards. My dear chap, he said, you’re thinking about it in quite the wrong way. You’re seeing it, forgive me, rather as a workman does: for so much work one gets so much pay. But that’s not the way to see it all.’
‘No?’
‘No. You should look upon it not as a job but as an investment. It’s not the pay you get—that, forgive me, is rather a low way of seeing it—it’s the use you can make of it. And the joy of a minister’s job is that there’s quite a lot of use you can make of it. If only,’ said Nuri gloomily, ‘I were a minister now!’
‘Yes, but—’
Nuri leaned forward and patted him on the knee.
‘It’s not the pay, dear boy. You’ll never become rich that way. It’s what you make of the job. Think of it as an opportunity. Now, surely, as Mamur Zapt you are extremely well placed—’
***
‘How did it go?’ asked Zeinab.
‘Not very well,’ Owen admitted. ‘He said he was short of cash himself.’
‘He probably is. It’s those dreadful people on his estate who have planted the wrong seed.’
‘Seed?’ said Owen, sitting up.
Zeinab pulled him down again.
‘For goodness’ sake!’ she said. ‘Now is not the time to take an interest in agriculture.’
Owen allowed himself to be pulled down.
‘I was just thinking,’ he said.
‘You always are. Now stop worrying. I’m sure it will be all right in the end. You must be patient. He really is short of cash.’
‘Yes, but when he’s short he means a million. When I’m short I mean a couple of hundred.’
‘You must try to bridge the gap, darling,’ Zeinab advised. ‘Spend more and then you will be short of a million, too.’
‘With you to help me,’ said Owen, ‘that should be no problem.’
Zeinab wriggled herself into a more comfortable position without opening her eyes.
‘You always seem to be thinking about money these days,’ she complained. ‘Can’t you think about anything else?’
‘As a matter of fact…’ said Owen, easing himself across her.
***
‘List of members?’ said the Chairman, taken by surprise. ‘Well, I don’t know about that. We’re rather an exclusive body, you know. There are members of the royal family. Prince Fuad, Prince Kamal—I’m sure they wouldn’t wish…’
‘In absolute confidence, of course.’
‘Well, if it’s in confidence, I suppose…’
The Chairman fetched the list. It ran to many pages.
‘For an exclusive body, you have a lot of members,’ Owen observed.
‘The cream,’ said the Chairman, ‘the cream!’
It was, indeed, the elite of Egypt. Royal Family, Ministers, Pashas, Members of the Assembly, senior members of the British Administration, eminent members of the business community—Singleby Stokes, for instance—bankers, diplomats, all were well represented.
Owen was amused to see that even Nuri’s name appeared, although the flowers that Zeinab’s father was interested in gathering were not normally of the horticultural variety. He was, however, assiduous at cultivating old relationships with those about the Khedive, never having quite abandoned hope that one day when the Khedive was constructing a Government he might still remember his old supporter.
There were various other Pashas in the list. Owen wrote down their names.
The Chairman looked worried. ‘I say, old chap—’
‘Just noting the names of fellow enthusiasts,’ said Owen soothingly.
Among them was that of Ali Reza Pasha.
***
‘Mr. Chairman, I protest!’ said Abdul Aziz Filmi.
‘What, again?’ murmured one of the representatives of the House Finance Committee. He caught his neighbour’s eye and grimaced. The Chairman of the Bank of Egypt grimaced back. Egyptians and British were alike on this.
Paul looked at his watch.
‘If you have to, Mr. Filmi,’ he said politely.
‘I do. I cannot let this discussion proceed further without calling the meeting’s attention to the impact such proposals would have on the fellahin.’
‘We’ve been through all this, Mr. Filmi,’ said the Minister of Finance wearily.
‘But you still haven’t addressed the problem!’ cried Mr. Filmi, pounding his fist upon the table.
The Minister looked at him with distaste.
‘We are not in the Chamber now, Mr. Filmi,’ he said coldly. ‘Can we not dispense with the histrionics?’
‘How else can I break through this wall of indifference? How else can I get you to pay attention to the needs of the people you are supposed to serve?’
‘Offensive!’ said someone on the other side of the room.
‘It will hurt the fellahin a lot more if banks start going under,’ observed one of the foreign bankers.
Mr. Filmi turned on him.
‘I agree. That is why I support the principle of an injection of funds into the banking system. What I am objecting to is the suggestion that existing loans be called in.’
‘But, Mr. Filmi,’ said the banker, ‘the banks are over-lent. If they don’t do something about that it will be no good us injecting more money. It will be pouring good money after bad.’
‘Tighten credit if you must!’ declared Mr. Filmi. ‘But do not do so at the expense of the poorest!’
‘We all have to share in the misery, Mr. Filmi,’ said the Minister, ‘fellahin as well as Pasha.’
‘The burden on the Pasha,’ said Mr. Filmi drily, ‘is rather less.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said the Minister, himself a Pasha.
Owen wondered if he was a member of the Khedivial Agricultural Society. He took the list out of his pocket and studied it surreptitiously. He was.
Mr. Filmi was now putting forward an argument that loans to fellahin should be considered differently.
‘I thought Mr. Filmi was opposed to special treatment for the Agricultural Bank,’ said the Minister of Finance slyly.
‘So I am!’ said Mr. Filmi, stung. ‘That would, indeed, be a case of pouring good money after b
ad!’
‘The Agricultural Bank? What’s that?’ asked one of the bankers.
‘It’s not a bank in your sense of the word,’ said Paul. ‘It’s a Government Agency.’
The bankers looked doubtful.
‘And under investigation by the Mamur Zapt,’ put in Mr. Filmi.
‘Really?’
The bankers looked even more doubtful.
‘A particular employee,’ said the Minister. ‘Not the bank in general.’
‘How are you getting on?’ asked Mr. Filmi.
‘I’m making progress,’ said Owen.
‘I think we should return to the general issue,’ said Paul, ‘which is the conditions on which our friends overseas would be prepared to make a substantial loan to the Egyptian Government.’
Unfortunately, friends overseas had already, on many occasions, made substantial loans to the Egyptian Government. The financial history of Egypt for the past thirty years consisted of substantial loans.
Somewhat to Owen’s surprise, the friends seemed prepared to come up with money once again. He was less surprised when the rate of interest was mentioned.
The discussion became technical and his attention wandered. It came back again when he heard roads being mentioned.
‘That would be a good example,’ said the banker. ‘We would always be willing to invest in specific projects. Providing they looked like being profitable, of course.’
‘I don’t see how blasting a road through the middle of Cairo would be profitable,’ objected Paul. ‘Rather the reverse!’
‘There is tremendous potential for development in Cairo,’ said the Minister eagerly, ‘and of course, a prerequisite is the right infrastructure.’
‘Of course!’
The bankers looked impressed.
‘It would cost an arm and a leg,’ said Paul.
‘But think of the jobs it would create!’ said the Minister.
‘Millions!’ said Paul. ‘It would cost millions!’
‘The price of modernization!’ said the Minister.
The bankers looked even more impressed. Even Mr. Filmi seemed sympathetic.
‘The city would explode,’ said Owen harshly.
‘Civil unrest!’ said Paul.
‘Oh, I think that could be contained,’ said the Minister.
The meeting closed soon afterwards. Owen had hoped to have a word with Paul. Instead, he was captured by Mr. Filmi.
‘You must stop it!’ he said.
‘I’ll certainly do my best, but without stiffer planning machinery—’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Mr. Filmi, bewildered.
‘This road. Both roads. The effect on the city—’
Mr. Filmi brushed it aside.
‘I’m all in favour of development,’ he said. ‘Investment. Modernization. That’s what this country needs.’
‘But at the price of—?’
But Mr. Filmi did not want to talk about that.
‘No, no, my dear fellow,’ he said, taking Owen by the arm. ‘It’s this deal with the Agricultural Bank. I understand that it’s going ahead. You must stop it, my dear fellow, you must stop it!’
Chapter Ten
Owen, however, was less interested in stopping the deal than he was in stopping the road; not so much for æsthetic reasons, persuasive though he had found the arguments of Barclay and Selim, nor out of loyalty to the Widow Shawquat, although he still meant to do what he could for her, but for reasons of state.
He saw the projected road as a major threat to order. The one through the Derb Aiah was bad enough but the one through the Old City was political dynamite. It would make some of the most conservative parts of the population explode in fury.
Any road built between the Bab-el-Futuh, and the Bab-el-Azab would inevitably mean the despoliation of a number of religious sites, including, almost certainly, the demolition of mosques. Some of these were among the most hallowed in the city and he could see no way in which an attempt to demolish them would not be resisted with blood.
Set against the command of religious loyalties, any loyalty the Khedive could call on was infinitesimal. He was seen as a foreigner anyway and, although Turkey was part of Islam, as part of a remote and secular power structure imposed from outside, a view reinforced by the fact that at the time of the nationalist Arabi uprising twenty years before the Khedive had had to call on British bayonets to maintain him in power.
And that was not all of it. Cairo was a city of many different nationalities and diverse religions. The road would also require the destruction of religious buildings other than Moslem ones. Copts, Greeks, Armenians, Montenegrins, Lebanese of all sects would be up in arms, not to mention the Protestants and Catholics.
It wasn’t just one religious war that would be declared on the Khedive, it was dozens. And who would be called on to protect him? The British. The Minister had said unrest would be contained. Owen knew exactly who would be doing the containing.
Paul was working feverishly on the Consul-General and normally could be counted on to persuade him. It might be different this time, though, because of the financial crisis. If the banks were to lend money, they would be more likely to do so if they thought they would make a killing; and a major project of this sort offered opportunity for such a kill.
But while ‘killing’ was for them a metaphor, a businessman’s way of talking, as Zokosis might have said, for Owen it was no metaphor. Killing was real; and therefore something to be avoided if you possibly could.
If anything was to be killed, it was the road; and the time to do that was before it even got started.
***
When Owen received the message from the Widow Shaw-quat—it came via the barber, a water-carrier who patrolled the city, his cousin who was an orderly at the Bab-el-Khalk, and a friend who made the tea in Owen’s office, and was delivered orally—that she wished him to meet her sheikh, Owen was at first alarmed and then pleased.
He was at first alarmed because the sheikh would be a religious sheikh and he could see trouble ahead if the road got mixed up with religion. But then, on reflection, he was pleased. Here could be a person who might quite properly lodge an appeal against the waqf on the Widow’s behalf.
When he met the sheikh, however, in the dark, airless room the Widow used for reception, he realized that this was out of the question. Anyone more likely to get himself tied up in the coils of Egyptian bureaucracy it was hard to imagine.
He was old and frail and half blind and his mental life was spent in a world different from his. His periods of lucidity enabled him to recognize his flock and give them spiritual counsel: but guidance on more worldly matters was not to be expected.
The Widow fussed over him and bossed him about, as she did all men. Owen could quite see how the sheikh had come to be enlisted on her side, although whether he understood what he was letting himself in for was another matter.
‘The Mamur Zapt, eh? So you’ve got the ear of the Sultan. Well, just watch out!’ he admonished the Widow. ‘That way sin lies.’
The Widow was taken aback.
‘Ask him for favours and he’ll ask you for favours!’
The Widow giggled.
‘Not much hope of that,’ she said.
The sheikh continued to talk of the Sultan. Owen realized after a while that he was harking back to a period even before the Khedives.
He responded gently and sipped his coffee and ate his sweet, sticky cake and wondered how soon he could decently leave.
The sheikh wiped his fingers on his galabeah and brushed the crumbs from his mouth and then said, with a sudden change of tone:
‘Well, what about this waqf, then?’
Owen sat up with a jerk.
‘It’s a swindle,’ said the sheikh. ‘The Shawquats have held that benefit for as long as I
can remember. And that goes back some time. I remember Ali Shawquat’s grandfather—no, it wasn’t his grandfather, it was his great—grandfather—no, it wasn’t—’
‘It’s always belonged to us,’ said the Widow hastily, ‘and now it’s been taken away.’
‘It’s got to be given back,’ said the sheikh. ‘It was given for a purpose, and the purpose remains bright even though those who now benefit be dulled.’
The Widow was not sure how to take this.
‘We live in two worlds,’ continued the sheikh. ‘One is the world of time, in which people come and go. The other is a world in which the moral action is eternal. It is not for us to attempt to put limits on it.’
‘Quite right!’ said the Widow. ‘I think.’
‘The recent decision must be reversed!’
‘Yes, but—’
The sheikh banged his stick on the ground.
‘I shall go to the Mufti,’ he announced.
‘God is great!’ cried the Widow, enthusiastic but slightly worried.
‘He is indeed,’ said Owen. ‘But—the Mufti has much to do. I wonder if it is as well to bother him with a thing like this? Directly, I mean?’
The sheikh looked puzzled.
‘What else does one do?’ he asked.
Owen realized that he was back again in that old world in which the only way the lowly could get through to the great was by personal supplication. The only way in which you could get things done—Egypt had had three thousand years of bureaucracy—was by speaking to the boss yourself.
Or through an intermediary. Owen realized that was what the sheikh saw himself as called on to be.
The Widow Shawquat, however, was not one for intermediaries.
‘But, Sheikh,’ she said, ‘you are frail. Can you manage on your own?’
‘It is but the body that is frail,’ said the sheikh, ‘not the spirit.’
‘It is, however, the body that I am worried about.’
The Widow looked at Owen anxiously. He could see what concerned her; not just the chance that the sheikh might collapse but also the not small probability that he might get it wrong.
The Camel of Destruction Page 13
