The Camel of Destruction

by Michael Pearce

  ‘I thought you might prefer not to know.’

  ‘Who do you think I am,’ asked Paul tartly, ‘a Minister? Someone’s got to have a grip on things.’

  ‘That, actually, was the question I wanted to ask you,’ said Owen. ‘Who is the person in the Ministries who has a grip on this deal between the Agricultural Bank and the Ministry of Agriculture?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘Who is actually going to sign the damned thing?’

  ‘Some poor sap. Signing, however, is nothing to do with it. The answer to your question is Abdul Mursa.’

  Owen recognized the name of someone high up at the Ministry of Finance.

  ‘Why?’ asked Paul.

  ‘I think I’d better see him.’

  ‘I think you’d better not,’ said Paul, ‘not for quite some time.’

  ‘You see, if he’s steering it—’

  ‘What is “it”?’

  ‘This dubious deal and the dubious goings-on around it.’

  ‘I’m not sure the deal is dubious,’ said Paul. ‘About the goings-on, however…’

  ‘You’re the one who told me to investigate them.’

  ‘Osman Fingari?’ Paul frowned. ‘Something’s going on, certainly. But I’d be surprised if Abdul Mursa was in on it. He’s an honest man. As they go, of course.’

  ‘He might be doing someone a favour.’

  ‘Ah, that,’ said Paul, ‘is quite possible. Anyone who gets as high as he has done might well have a lot of favours to pay back.’

  ‘Have you any idea who he might be paying them to?’

  ‘I could give you a list.’

  ‘Please do. Would the list include Pashas? Ali Reza Pasha, for instance?’

  ‘It might. But, look, if I do this for you, will you do something for me?’

  ‘We are all in the business of favours,’ said Owen.

  ‘Thank you. Well, the favour I want you to do me is not to cause any more trouble for a day or two. I’ve quite enough as it is. Go and play with Zeinab.’

  If Owen was extremely unpopular in some circles, however, he was suddenly unexpectedly popular in others.

  Mr. Sidki rushed round to congratulate him.

  ‘I never knew the Minister had it in him!’ he declared. ‘It appears he has, and if so someone must have put it there. A triumph! For you, for us and for the fellahin.’

  Owen was not so sure. He had talked to Yussuf that morning. The orderly had come in unusually depressed. He had, it appeared, been negotiating a loan with the Agricultural Bank. Negotiations had suddenly been suspended.

  ‘But, Yussuf, you don’t need a loan. You already have loans up to your eyeballs.’

  ‘Yes, I do, effendi,’ wailed Yussuf. ‘How else am I to pay for seed?’

  Owen had heard this before.

  ‘I suppose I could make you an advance,’ he said grudgingly.

  ‘No, no, effendi, this really is for seed.’

  ‘Three pounds, then.’

  ‘Alas, effendi,’ said Yussuf sadly, ‘I need fifty.’

  So Owen wasn’t sure about it being a triumph as far as the fellahin were concerned. Paul had told him that if the Agricultural Bank was unable to raise a loan it might well collapse. Then what would the fellahin do? Go back to the traditional moneylender at 75%?

  ‘The Government should make a loan,’ said Mr. Sidki.

  ‘The Government needs a loan,’ said Paul. ‘Otherwise it will go under, too.’

  In his jubilation Mr. Sidki was disposed to forget that what had originally sparked things off was Osman Fingari’s suicide.

  ‘I still can’t see what brought it about,’ said Owen.

  ‘Pressure,’ said Mr. Sidki, ‘pressure.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘The Bank, of course. To get the deal completed. Oh, you won’t believe the pressure they put him under. Especially when they began to realize he was dragging his feet.’

  ‘Dragging his feet?’

  Mr. Sidki stared at him.

  ‘Of course! He was opposed to the whole thing, you know.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘But of course! He was one of us.’

  ‘One of us?’

  ‘A sympathizer. Politically. From the time when he was in college. We have a lot of support among students, Captain Owen, we do some of our best recruiting there. And then afterwards we kept in touch, especially when he went to the Ministry.’

  ‘Public Works?’

  ‘Yes. But then when he told us he was moving to Agriculture, well, we were delighted. We had some inkling that a deal was in the offing but lacked precise information. So when we heard he was going to Agriculture we thought he might be in a position to supply it. And then, when we found out he was actually handling the deal, we thought this is our chance.’

  ‘To do what, Mr. Sidki?’

  ‘To delay the deal. You see, we thought that if we had longer we might be able to rouse public opinion against it, might even be able to stop it altogether. We instructed Osman to play for time. But then, I think, they began to suspect.’

  ‘And put pressure on him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you think this was what led Mr. Fingari to commit suicide?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mr. Sidki, when we spoke before, you used a word which implied something more than pressure.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘You spoke of him as being killed.’

  Mr. Sidki hesitated.

  ‘Does it not amount to the same thing?’

  ‘I don’t think it does.’

  Mr. Sidki hesitated again, then took Owen confidentially by the arm.

  ‘Isn’t it a question of the degree and nature of the pressure?’ He bent his head close to Owen’s. ‘You see, Captain Owen, we suspect that there was something which gave them a hold over him and that when they began to suspect, they, well…’

  ‘Used this knowledge?’

  ‘Threatened to use it, perhaps.’

  ‘Blackmail?’

  Sidki bent his head even closer.

  ‘That is what we suspect.’

  ‘You don’t think, Mr. Sidki, that you yourselves may have been to blame? You, too, were exerting pressure. Perhaps between the pressures…’

  Mr. Sidki released his arm and stepped back, horrified.

  ‘Certainly not, Captain Owen! Certainly not!’

  ***

  Ali was waiting for him as he came down the steps of the Bab-el-Khalk.

  ‘Effendi!’ he hissed. ‘I have important news.’

  Owen felt in his pocket.

  ‘What is it?’ he said.

  ‘You have a rival.’

  ‘Rival?’ said Owen, bewildered.

  ‘She is seeing another.’

  ‘Aisha?’

  ‘Just so, effendi,’ said Ali, looking wise. ‘Appetite will out. I must say, it comes as a bit of a surprise in Aisha’s case, but these quiet ones—’

  ‘All right, all right. Who is this man?’

  ‘Someone from the past.’

  ‘Is his name Jabir?’

  Ali looked surprised. ‘No, effendi. His name is Selim.’

  ‘Oh, Selim. I know about that.’

  Ali fell in alongside him as Owen turned under the trees.

  ‘The question is, effendi, what we are going to do. I am willing to help but, well,’ Ali admitted, ‘my experience is limited.’

  ‘A good job, too.’

  ‘We could try poison. You would have to get it, though, as Abdul Mali refused to sell it me now.’

  ‘Now?’ said Owen, halting.

  ‘Since the business of the sheep.’

  ‘What business of the sheep?’ said Owen severely.

  ‘M
ohammed Siftaq’s sheep. Well, he had no cause to be rude, did he? The harem window was open, what did he expect? She did it deliberately, I’m sure.’

  ‘Ali—’

  ‘Anyway, it wasn’t poison the sheep died of. It sicked it all up. No, it choked itself on some very gristly offal it found in the street. Effendi?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is there any way in which we could get him to choke himself?’

  ‘It hasn’t come to that, Ali. However, since you are here, can you arrange another meeting with Aisha for me?’

  Ali, surprisingly, was silent.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Effendi,’ said Ali reluctantly. ‘I could, but—’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Effendi, Aisha has been good to me. She is a good girl. Her appetite is obviously beginning to get out of hand, but all the same—’

  ‘Shut up, Ali,’ said Owen.

  They walked a little way in silence. Owen’s hand was still in his pocket, a fact which Ali had been contemplating.

  ‘Effendi,’ he said at last, ‘I will do it. But you must promise me you will not kill her. Beat, yes, but—’

  ‘I have no intention of even touching her. I just want to see her.’

  ‘Well, of course, effendi. Passion—’

  They met in an alleyway behind an oil press. Owen recognized that it was difficult to find a pretext for women to go out, never mind meet anybody and paid inner tribute to Ali’s ingenuity. Nevertheless, as he crouched among the sacks of sesame seed, barely able to breathe because of the heavy, sweet, sickly smell of the pressed oil which hung over everything, he felt uneasily that Ali’s talents were beginning to run away with him.

  The dark veiled form of a woman with a huge jar on her head came into the alleyway and hovered uncertainly.

  ‘Aisha?’

  Reassured, the figure advanced. Beside the wall there was a pile of barrels. One of them was raised on stones and already spigoted. Aisha set her jar down in front of it and turned the spigot. Oil began to flow steadily.

  ‘Effendi?’

  ‘I have a few questions. Can you help me again?’

  ‘I will try.’

  ‘Good. Then, first, can you tell me if Osman was interested in politics?’

  ‘He was as all the young men are, effendi.’

  ‘Did he talk about it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Sometimes he was angry.’

  ‘What was he angry about?’

  ‘The fellahin. The British.’

  ‘The British, I can understand. Why was he angry about the fellahin?’

  ‘He said things were bad for them. That this was a bad time. That is why he was glad when he moved to the new Ministry. He thought he might be able to do them good.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I do not know, effendi. Through his work, perhaps.’

  ‘Did he go to meetings?’

  ‘I do not think so, effendi. That is—’ she hesitated—‘after I spoke to him.’

  ‘Why did you speak to him, Aisha?’

  ‘It was just after he had joined the Ministry, the first one. There was a demonstration. He told me about it afterwards. People had thrown stones. I was angry. I said, “If you do that, you will soon lose your job. Then where will you be?” And I think he listened to me, for after that there was no more.’

  ‘Was this about the time that he met up again with Jabir?’

  Aisha thought.

  ‘It was about that time, yes, effendi. But I do not think that it was anything to do with Jabir.’

  ‘No, no. I was thinking that perhaps Jabir turned his mind away from that sort of thing and towards other things.’

  ‘If he did,’ said Aisha bitterly, ‘it was the first good he has done him.’

  She turned off the flow of oil but still crouched by the jar as if she was watching it fill.

  ‘My other question is about Jabir. Can you speak of him?’

  ‘If I must,’ said Aisha in a low voice.

  ‘It relates to the last few weeks. You have already told me that in that time Osman became a changed man.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Things weighed on his mind, but not in an ordinary way. Much, much more heavily.’

  ‘Yes, effendi.’

  ‘And in that time, was he seeing Jabir?’

  ‘Yes, effendi.’

  Aisha’s voice was almost inaudible.

  ‘Are you sure, Aisha? How do you know? You said he did not speak to you.’

  There was a long silence, so long that he was beginning to think she might not have heard.

  ‘He came to me,’ she said at last.

  ‘Osman?’

  ‘No, no.’ She made a gesture with her hand. ‘Jabir.’

  ‘Jabir came to you?’

  ‘Yes. He wanted to speak with me. He said Osman had given permission. I knew he wanted to ask me and—and I would not let him. I would not even let him come in. I turned him from the door.’

  ‘What did he say to you?’

  ‘Just what I have said. That Osman had given him permission. I would not let him say any more. It—it was nothing, effendi. But that is how I know Osman had been seeing him.’

  ‘And you do not know what they spoke of?’

  ‘Only this, effendi. Only this.’

  She gave a little sob.

  ‘I shall not keep you further, Aisha,’ said Owen gently. ‘It is just that I am trying very hard to find something that Osman may have done which gave others a hold over him.’

  ‘He had done something wrong, effendi,’ said Aisha, sobbing. ‘I know he had.’

  ‘And you have no idea what? Did he ever mention the name Tufa to you?’

  Aisha shook her head. ‘No, effendi,’ she said.

  Owen waited for a few moments after Aisha had gone before climbing out from behind his sacks. Ali was waiting for him at the end of the alleyway.

  ‘Effendi!’ he said agitatedly. ‘He is here!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your rival. Shall we strike now, effendi? God has delivered him into our hands.’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘I will lure him up a dark street and then you…I think it is best if you do it, effendi, for he is bigger than I.’

  ‘No, Ali.’

  ‘No?’ said Ali, disappointed. ‘Not yet? Well, of course, it is for you to decide but such golden opportunities do not grow on trees. Still,’ he said, cheering up, ‘they do say that revenge is a dish best eaten cold.’

  ‘Thank you, Ali. Now can you tell me where Selim is?’

  ‘You wish to measure him? This way, effendi.’

  The barber was in full spate as they arrived. A small crowd had gathered round him and at the back of the crowd was Selim.

  ‘The man is right!’ he was declaring, with a great wave of his scissors. The customer in the chair flinched and looked miserable. From the rear of the small crowd Selim nodded approvingly.

  ‘We must stand up for ourselves! We must get up off our backsides!’

  ‘I would willingly get off mine,’ said the customer in the chair, ‘if only you’d stop talking and get on with it.’

  The barber ignored him.

  ‘The man’s right!’ he said excitedly. ‘We’ve got to do something. Otherwise it will be too late. First the kuttub. Then the hospital. Then the mosque. Then the House for the Aged. What’ll it be next, I wonder? The graveyard? Yes! Even in the graveyard our bones cannot lie in peace!’

  ‘What’s the graveyard got to do with it?’ asked someone.

  ‘Haven’t you heard? They’re driving a road right smack through the middle of it,’ replied his neighbour.

  ‘Excuse me—’ began Selim, a little anxiously.

  ‘And now it’s the water!’ cried the barber.

/>   ‘Water?’ said Selim, taken aback.

  ‘Yes. Close the kuttub first, then the fountains below. That’s what they’ll do. You mark my words!’ said the barber with an extravagant flourish.

  ‘Oi!’ cried the customer in alarm, as the blades went past him.

  ‘Take our water from us,’ cried the barber, ‘and you take our lives!’

  ‘There are other pumps besides those at the fountain-house,’ someone objected.

  The crowd, however, was caught up in the sweep of the barber’s rhetoric.

  ‘The bastards! They’re after our water now!’

  ‘They’ll have us by the throat!’ shouted the barber, clutching at his and gasping dramatically. ‘Take our water and there’ll be nothing left for us to do but die!’

  ‘I shall die first,’ said the customer sitting in the chair, ‘only it’ll be from old age, waiting for you to finish trimming my beard!’

  The barber turned back to him in a fury.

  Selim was mopping his brow when Owen came up to him.

  ‘It doesn’t seem to be quite as straightforward as I thought,’ he said.

  ***

  ‘But why me?’ said Owen.

  Zokosis smiled.

  ‘I think, Captain Owen, that if you were frank you would admit that you view me with a certain amount of suspicion. It is precisely for that reason.’

  The Chairman of the Khedivial Agricultural Society looked puzzled.

  ‘The Society has built its reputation on employing the best people,’ he said. ‘Pay the most, get the best.’

  ‘I am afraid I am committed to my public duties.’

  ‘This would be in your free time.’

  ‘Even so—’

  ‘I don’t think it’s incompatible with your public duties,’ said Zokosis. ‘Indeed, rather the reverse.’

  ‘You see, Owen,’ said the Chairman, ‘because of all the furore there’s been about this—quite a lot of which, frankly, has been of your making—the Society’s got to be seen to be above board. Well, we are above board and we’ll damned well show it by using you. That way there’ll be no doubt.’

  ‘This is of more than usual importance, Captain Owen,’ said Zokosis, ‘or we wouldn’t waste your time. The deal has run into difficulties, I don’t mind admitting it. The people who are going to finance it want cast-iron assurances. The reports on these tests are crucial to our success. And it’s not just the Bank that will go under if we fail, but thousands of fellahin.’