The Camel of Destruction

by Michael Pearce

  ‘Yes, indeed. But…Osman was in the Department of Agriculture, was he not?’

  ‘Oh, come, Mr. Sabry!’ Owen said, smiling, ‘I’m sure you know as well as I do, with your banking connections, about the business with the Agricultural Bank?’

  ‘Well!’ Jabir laughed. ‘Perhaps I do.’

  ‘Additional work, difficult circumstances. I’m sure that can’t have helped. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Oh yes, indeed.’

  ‘You saw him just before it happened, didn’t you? Would you say he was under strain?’

  ‘Oh, very much so.’

  ‘Any particular cause of strain, do you know?’

  Jabir hesitated. ‘Just general pressure.’

  ‘To conclude the deal? Was there a time limit?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘That might have been it, then, mightn’t it? He was worried about completing it on time. The only thing is—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Several people have suggested to me that in fact he was not hurrying. Deliberately not hurrying.’

  ‘Deliberately?’

  ‘Was that, I wonder, the impression of your colleagues, Mr. Sabry? Your banking colleagues, that is?’

  Jabir hesitated.

  ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘I believe it was.’

  ‘And why was that, do you think?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Someone pressing the other way, perhaps?’

  Jabir shot a glance at him.

  ‘Why would anyone be doing that?’

  ‘Because they were rivals, perhaps? You spoke of rivals earlier.’

  ‘Ah, but that was quite different. There are no rivals here,’ said Jabir positively.

  ‘Well, perhaps not rivals. Opponents, let’s say. Political opponents?’

  There was a little silence.

  ‘You could be right,’ said Jabir.

  ‘Because if I was, and there were people applying pressure from several directions, and because of one of the pressures Osman was, let’s say, dragging his feet, then those applying pressure from the opposite direction might feel they needed to exert something extra in the way of pressure.’

  ‘How would they do that?’ muttered Jabir.

  ‘You tell me,’ said Owen.

  ***

  ‘And did he?’ asked Georgiades.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think he didn’t buy you any more drinks after that.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘But the answer is in any case obvious,’ said Georgiades, ‘Tufa.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Owen. ‘That’s right. I was puzzled at first that Ali Reza and the Trans-Levant were in on the act. It seemed too small. If they were just interested in the money, that is. But if they were interested in something else…’

  ‘Like the deal with the Agricultural Bank.’

  ‘Yes. And, having got their man into place, wanted to be sure that he would do as he was told…’

  ‘Tufa was just right. They involved him at the beginning when they got him to approve the first application. And then they involved him again when they applied to register the change of land use. His initials on both. So they had got him. If they ever needed to get him.’

  ‘I think they did need to get him. Or threaten to get him. When it became clear that he was dragging his feet.’

  ‘Who is “they”?’ asked Georgiades.

  ‘Ali Reza, of course. He was the man with influence at the Ministry. He was the one who was able to get Fingari transferred and put in the right place. But I suspect he may have been just a helper. There were others involved.’

  ‘The Trans-Levant Bank, for instance.’

  ‘Yes. Jabir could have been a go-between in both directions. Not just Ali Reza’s man at the Bank, but, more to the point, the Bank’s way of approaching Ali Reza.’

  ‘You think the initiative came from the Bank?’

  ‘We’re talking about a banking deal. And we’re talking about something big, big even for Ali Reza.’

  ‘How big is the Trans-Levant?’

  ‘That’s what I’m wondering. Get Nikos to have a look. He’s done something on that shell company, hasn’t he? He may already have an idea. But get him to check on some of the other things they’re involved in. Especially—’ Owen stopped.

  ‘Especially?’

  ‘Tufa was a land deal, wasn’t it? Get him to look at other land deals. And in particular—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Ones around the Bab-el-Azab.’

  ***

  It was only gradually that Owen’s part in the Minister’s decision to send seed abroad for independent testing became known. Owen suspected that the Khedivial Agricultural Society had not known about it when they had asked him to undertake the journey to Alexandria for them. He thought it likely that they would not be asking him again.

  Among the Nationalists, though, his name was murmured with relish, and some surprise. He even found himself mentioned favourably in some of the most radical Nationalist newspapers.

  He was not foolish enough to imagine that this would continue for long; nor did it.

  Opening a copy of Al-Lewa one morning, he found himself the subject of the leading article. It described his visit to Alexandria on behalf of the Khedivial Agricultural Society and was sufficiently well-informed as to refer to a separate commission from ‘a notorious ring of Pashas’.

  The article was long on implication and short on detail but it did print the exact size of the sum that Owen had received and made much of the discrepancy between it and the nature of the services allegedly rendered.

  Was not this, the article inquired, yet another instance of the corruption in which the country’s Government was steeped? Yet one more illustration of the dubious links between business, Administration and, yes, the Khedive, for whom, it was implied, the Khedivial Agricultural Society was but a front? One more betrayal of decent fellahin by those responsible for the direction of the country?

  It was particularly sad to find the Mamur Zapt so directly implicated. There had recently been indications that he was taking a more liberal line. Alas, this was probably merely another illustration of the subterfuge for which the Mamur Zapt was famous.

  Corruption, the article concluded, was all around. The only answer was to get rid of the lot of them: Khedive, Pashas, Government, British, bankers, moneylenders, barbers—

  Barbers? Owen summoned Yussuf. Why barbers?

  Yussuf shuffled his feet.

  ‘In our village,’ he said finally, ‘it is Abdul the barber who arranges the loans.’

  ‘But surely he has no money to lend?’

  ‘No, but Ibrahim has and Abdul acts for him.’

  ‘Why does not Ibrahim act for himself?’

  ‘Because he lives in another village, effendi.’

  At last Owen understood. In the small villages of the Egyptian countryside the barber was often a leading figure. Where there was no omda, or headman, he sometimes acted as the local registrar.

  Of an evening the men of the village would gather round to admire the barber’s art and join in the conversation. This left the barber handily placed for the discharge of commissions, especially on behalf of those outside the village.

  Agent for the local moneylender and representative of the Government! No wonder the rural barber was added to the Nationalists’ hate list.

  The town barber was, of course, quite different. He was often radical, as in the case of Owen’s friend in the Derb Aiah, and very popular with the Nationalists.

  ‘Yussuf,’ said Owen sternly, ‘you must not go to Ibrahim. He will charge you a fifty per cent rate of interest.’

  ‘More,’ said Yussuf sadly. ‘Abdul told me yesterday it would be seventy-five per cent if I did not go
to him soon.’

  ‘You steer clear of him,’ Owen advised.

  Yussuf spread his hands.

  ‘How can I, effendi? I must buy seed. And now that the Bank has refused…’

  Owen sat considering the nation’s finances for some time, an activity to which he was not much accustomed. They seemed more complicated than he had thought. Banks, he was against, and moneylenders, too. Large landowners he was not greatly in favour of, rich pashas in general even less. The business community did not fill him with enthusiasm.

  But abolish all these—and he was astonished to find the similarity between his own thinking and that of the Nationalists—and where was the money to come from?

  The phone rang.

  ‘Gareth,’ said Paul sternly, ‘is this true?’

  ‘Is what true?’

  ‘About the money.’

  He quoted the relevant part of Al-Lewa.

  ‘Certainly,’ said Owen.

  There was a long silence.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Paul.

  ***

  All Cairo loved a procession, which was just as well for there were plenty of them. There were wedding processions and funeral processions; there were processions to mark the end of Ramadan and the Rising of the Waters; there was a procession to ‘smell the air’, when half of Cairo trooped out of the city on the first day of the khamsin to savour the coming of spring.

  There were processions to mark saints’ days and there was certainly at least one saint’s day every week. There was a procession to mark the Birthday of the Prophet, marred only by the fact that the interfering British would no longer allow devotees to lie on their faces in the street for the Descendant of the Prophet to ride over. Similar interference, it was rumoured, was projected for the night of the Ashura, when the devout marched through the streets slashing themselves with swords and knives.

  The best time for processions was during the pilgrim season. Almost every day private pilgrims returning from Mecca were escorted back to their houses by processions sometimes half a mile in length. When the bulk parties of pilgrims arrived, by train now, the procession jammed the city for days. The climax was the Return of the Carpet from Mecca—an occasion which Owen had good cause to remember.

  Processions did not consist simply of people marching. They included palanquins and bands and acrobats and masqueraders. They included people doing comic turns—usually of a scurrilous nature—in cages carried on marchers’ shoulders. They included people dancing and people carrying their restaurants around with them and giant floats with papier-mâché figures. All the fun of the fair, you might say; only a moving fair.

  The British, when they came, had no idea how to police this lot. That policing was needed was self-evident. Big numbers in confined places; people enjoying themselves. That spelt trouble.

  They tried lining the streets with constables. It did not work because the constables were simply lads from the country and either watched jaw-dropped and spellbound or else joined in.

  After a while the authorities realized that the occasions needed little special policing except when they were on an unusually large scale. They confined their efforts to political demonstrations, of which, with the growth of Nationalism, there was an increasing number.

  These certainly did need policing, not so much because of the threat these posed to the authorities, although that was not how they saw it, but because they tended to spill over into violence directed at some minority group or other.

  So when the Mufti proposed his Grand March, Owen’s first question was about the nature of the procession.

  ‘Political, certainly,’ said the Mufti. ‘We want to influence the Prime Minister, don’t we?’

  Owen explained his difficulty.

  ‘It’s hardly religious,’ said the Mufti. ‘I could say it was to stop mosques being knocked down but then that very definitely would lead to trouble.’

  ‘I was wondering,’ said Owen diffidently, ‘whether the point could be made implicitly in some way. You know, the procession could ostensibly be about something else, to celebrate a saint or something, but somehow make the point—?’

  ‘We could certainly celebrate a saint,’ said the Mufti, thinking. ‘There are several to choose from. There is no need to be too pedantic about actual day of birth. How about Sheikh Abd Al-Samad?’

  ‘He seems as good as any other.’

  ‘Better,’ said the Mufti, ‘because what he is noted for is averting the Camel of Destruction.’

  ‘How did he do that?’

  ‘He lay down in its path. The Camel swerved when it saw the Sheikh and the town was saved.’

  ‘He will do very nicely,’ said Owen.

  The date and route of the March was announced. The procession would start outside the Mosque of Ibu Tulun, proceed westward past the Mosque of Sayida Zeinab (Owen liked this), march northwards through the Ministerial Quarter (unusual, this, for a saint’s procession) to the Bab-el-Luk, swing eastwards past the Khedive’s Palace (so that the Khedive could share their delight) and the Police Headquarters at the Bab-el Khalk (where the police could keep an eye on them) and finally march east out of the city towards the Mokattam Hills, where a fantasia would be waiting for them.

  This was important both because it was a great draw and because it was out of town, so here would be a fair chance of everything ending peaceably.

  A fantasia was, basically, fun and games. A space would be made ready with lots of little booths made out of carpet in which sights might be seen (like the Woman With Two Heads) and entertainment experienced (like the Juggling Snake). There would be a variety of food stalls so that the procession could refresh itself on cakes (but not ale), sweetmeats, nuts, roasts and tea.

  After which they would all, so Owen hoped, go peacefully to bed.

  McPhee, the Deputy Commandant of the Cairo Police, would look after this end. He had a collector’s interest in saints’ days: although he was a little puzzled by this one.

  ‘I thought I knew them all,’ he said, surprised.

  ‘Ah, but this is a special one,’ said Owen.

  ‘I must look up this Sheikh Abd Al-Samad.’

  ‘Yes, you should do that,’ said Owen, ‘afterwards.’

  The procession, unusually, would be led by the Mufti himself. It was said that he wished to give special emphasis to the day’s meaning.

  The other unusual feature was that he would be accompanied by the Mamur Zapt.

  ‘Smart wheeze!’ said the regulars in the bar, nudging each other knowingly.

  ‘The Pied Piper in person,’ said Paul tartly.

  The procession set off late in the afternoon when the sun was beginning to go off the streets but its rays could still sparkle redly in the brassbacked mirrors which were an essential part of any procession. It would finish in the dark, when the flaming torches and little red lanterns and fireworks could be seen to best advantage.

  Since the Mufti was at its head, the leading ranks were full of the illustrious. These did not include the Widow Shaw-quat and the barber, who nevertheless were prominent in a second phalanx led by Selim. Beside them, dogged to the last, hobbled the Sheikh Hussein Al-Jamal Abd-el-Assid.

  Owen marched beside the Mufti. They had much to talk about, little of which concerned the saintly merits of Abd Al-Samad.

  ‘What an excellent opportunity!’ said the Mufti. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a long time.’

  ‘We must do this more often,’ said Owen.

  Small boys ran along the fringes of the procession. One such small boy drew up alongside Owen as he was talking to the Mufti.

  ‘Effendi!’ hissed Ali. ‘He is here!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your rival. What do you advise?’

  ‘Keep walking!’ counselled Owen. ‘Let him die of sunstroke.’

  Baff
led, Ali dropped back.

  The Widow Shawquat had dropped back, too. So had the Sheikh Hussein Al-Jamal Abd-el-Assid. A little later, however, Owen saw them again, once more in their position at the head of the second phalanx. This time, though, the Sheikh was sitting in a wheelbarrow, pushed by a stout, but bemused, workman under the close supervision of the Widow Shawquat.

  The progress of that part of the procession was a little unsteady because the barber kept stopping, the better to harangue those about him.

  Not far away Selim looked nervous. This was not just because the barber had brought his working tools with him and every so often there was the bright flash of scissors in the air. It was because, with the misplaced feeling of responsibility for the universe of the overconscientious, he was casting around in his mind for things that could go wrong. Owen was relieved to see, a little later, that Barclay had joined him. One man, at least, knew what this was all about.

  The procession turned up the broad boulevard between the Ministries. People came out of the buildings and marched in the procession for a short while to show their respects.

  Among them, forewarned of the presence of the Mufti and eager to demonstrate the religious zeal which was commonly and so wrongly supposed to be lacking in them, were several Ministers. They fell in naturally beside the Mufti.

  ‘This saint must be important, O Mufti,’ they said, ‘since you are leading his procession.’

  ‘It is not the man himself,’ said the Mufti, ‘but what he stands for.’

  ‘Of course! Of course!’

  ‘What does he stand for?’ asked the Mufti.

  ‘Well…’

  ‘I will tell you,’ said the Mufti, and recounted the story of Sheikh Abd Al-Samad.

  When he had finished, there was a puzzled silence.

  ‘You said it was what he stood for?’ said one of the Ministers hesitantly.

  ‘A Camel of Destruction is about to march through the city,’ said the Mufti sternly.

  ‘He is?’

  The Mufti looked back over the procession behind him. It stretched out all the way down the boulevard and then bent out of sight down the Sharia el Mobtaddyan. From further away, the Midan Nasriyeh, perhaps, or perhaps even the Place Sayida Zeinab, came the sound of drums which indicated that the tail was still assembling.