The Mark of the Pasha

by Michael Pearce

‘Were you thinking of taking that one home to the Mission, Miss Skiff?’

  Miss Skiff rose and dusted her knees.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ she said regretfully. ‘Although it does seem a shame to leave them here in these disgusting conditions.’

  ‘I think they’re rather enjoying them. You don’t seek to rescue all animals, then, Miss Skiff?’

  ‘The task would be never ending. So what brings you here, Captain Owen? Not the cats, I fancy.’

  ‘No. I’m still on the trail of that water-cart that concerned us the other day.’

  ‘Ah, yes. The horses.’

  ‘They’re safe and sound, I’m sure you’ll be glad to know, and back at the Depot. Or, rather, out on the roads again.’

  Miss Skiff nodded.

  ‘They like work,’ she said. ‘It gives them something to do. A task in life. Otherwise they would get bored.’

  ‘And you, too, Miss Skiff, see yourself with a task? You and your ladies?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Always out on the roads?’

  ‘Most days, yes.’

  ‘I wonder—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I wonder if you or they might have noticed a cart?’

  ‘We would have seen a cart very probably. We always look out for horses.’

  ‘This one was a special one. It was the one you saw in the Sharia Nubar Pasha.’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘I wonder if any of you had seen it previously that day.’

  ‘Well, we might have seen it, but—’

  ‘Stopping. With men working under it. As if it had broken down.’

  ‘Ah, you want to see if it had broken down before?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, we might have seen it but I don’t think we would have noticed it unless it was blocking up the traffic or something.’

  ‘Perhaps I should come clean. It’s about the bomb. I think it quite likely that it was put in the cart somewhere between the Water Depot and the Sharia Nubar Pasha, and I wondered if any of your ladies might have seen that happening.’

  ‘Well, I will ask, but—’

  ‘It might look as if the cart had broken down and the men were trying to fix it.’

  Miss Skiff nodded.

  ‘And then, of course, they would have left lighting the fuse until they got to the Nubar Pasha.’

  ‘It wasn’t that kind of bomb.’

  ‘Oh? What kind of bomb was it?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t one where you had to light a fuse. More a question of chemical action.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ said Miss Skiff, interested. ‘How did that work? Do tell me. I used to be a science teacher.’

  ‘Well, it was a question of releasing nitric acid into picric acid.’

  Miss Skiff nodded.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘I can see how that might work.’

  ‘As a bomb, it has shortcomings. One of them is that it would be unstable.’

  ‘Depends on the arrangements for mixing,’ said Miss Skiff.

  ‘What concerns me is that the arrangements were rather gim-crack. The movement of the cart, which is not exactly smooth, could have detonated it prematurely. And then the horses—’

  ‘Yes. I can see about the horses,’ said Miss Skiff impatiently. ‘But also innocent passers-by. Well, I can see why you want to find out whether the bomb was put in the cart on the way and will make inquiries. But as to stopping—or even taking a package on board—there could be quite an innocent explanation. These carts are always picking up packages and delivering them around the city. It is a sort of unofficial postal service, and very convenient, since the water-carts go everywhere. Ordinary people might well use them instead of the more formal postal service. It’s cheaper, for a start—just a few coins to the drivers.’

  ‘You seem to know the city pretty well, Miss Skiff.’

  ‘I should know it,’ said Miss Skiff. ‘I have lived in it for nearly fifty years now.’

  ***

  It was early evening by the time Georgiades got back to the Bab-el-Khalk. No, he protested indignantly, he had not spent the whole afternoon in the baths. When he had come out, he had continued to retrace the route the cart had taken, right up to the Sharia Nubar Pasha. This was not as satisfactory, he acknowledged as replicating it in the morning, when the cart had actually made its journey, and he would probably need to do that bit again the next morning; but the people on the route did not change that much and he had been anxious to catch them as soon after the event as he could, while all was still fresh in their minds.

  ‘And did you find out anything in the hammam?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A package had definitely been picked up. But exactly when, or where, or from whom it was transferred, Georgiades was not yet able to say. They had not picked it up from Reception, which was where it might have been expected to have been left. The receptionist was adamant that no package had been given to him. It must have been picked up inside. That was quite possible for inside was a series of rooms and something could have been passed at any point. The most likely place was the changing room. Someone could have been waiting there, apparently changing, before or after having a bath, and then simply taken the package out of a locker and passed it to the two men.

  Well, not quite so simply. There was usually an attendant in the room. But money could pass as easily as packages, and the m’allim might have been bribed. Or else the package could have been passed while his attention was distracted. He had assured Georgiades that he had not been aware of any transaction of that kind at that time.

  Had he been aware of the two men coming in? He might have remembered them because it was probable that they didn’t go on in to take the baths but had just entered and left the changing room.

  He couldn’t swear to that, there had been people coming and going, and there had been a problem about towels. But he thought it possible. People did drift in occasionally to chat to their friends but when they did they usually took a bath as well. The hammam was a great meeting place for people, somewhere where they could sit and chat. It was, said the m’allim, carried away, the hub of the universe.

  More mundanely it was also a place where even people like water-cart drivers might drop in, especially if they were doing someone a favour by picking up something to pass on.

  A package had, however, definitely been picked up somewhere inside. At the entrance to the hammam had been the usual cluster of beggars and they recalled two men coming out carrying a parcel. They had rushed to offer their services; and they recalled the occasion clearly because of the sharpness with which their offer had been spurned.

  ***

  Miriam had been given a desk in a corner of Zeinab’s office, behind which she sat surrounded by mountains of unprocessed forms. The fact was that, faced with the flood of military patients, Zeinab had chosen to concentrate on essentials: like seeing that the soldiers got their pay while in hospital (which accorded very much with the priorities of the Australians themselves).

  The Army, after some skirmishing, had agreed to send in its pay clerks, but had insisted that the patients parade outside the office assigned them so that the soldiers could be ticked off properly. Apart from the difficulty of getting severely wounded patients out of bed, this had blocked up the corridors. After some battles roughly equivalent in ferocity to those they had been fighting in the desert, the Army agreed that its clerks might go round the beds.

  The question then arose of what the patients might do with their money. They knew very well what they wanted to do with it and Zeinab, for perhaps the first time, was glad that the nurses were men. In the end they settled for beer instead but this caused problems too and for a while Zeinab contemplated bringing the military police into the hospital as well as the army clerks. Here, too, though, the patients found that they had overestim
ated themselves and the problem subsided.

  What had not subsided, however, were the mounds of forms that the Army decreed necessary about any of its members lying in bed. Might they be malingering? In which case they should be discharged. Might they be dead? In which case they were improperly being paid. In either case, the situation needed monitoring, and that required forms.

  And there the forms were, unfilled in, on Miriam’s desk. Zeinab had ignored them.

  At the end of the first morning Miriam said tentatively:

  ‘What I think we need is a better way of doing this.’

  ‘Right!’ said Zeinab with relief. ‘You find it.’

  Miriam could actually see some improvements that might be made but felt the need of experience. Her brother, of course, had this in plenty so she put some of the problem to him when he came home that evening. It took some time for him to see that they were engaged in a real conversation here and when he did he was taken aback. No one had ever asked him about methods before and he rather doubted that she could understand what was involved. When she showed that she did he was for the moment nonplussed; but then realised that she must have unconsciously picked up some things from him as she was sitting next to him when he pored over his papers late at night. However, he did his best to explain it at her level.

  The next day she came back with more questions. She had tried some of his suggestions and this was what she had found… Ah, well, in that case, then, she should try…

  He found her surprisingly quick. It must be a sort of hereditary talent, he thought, although he was surprised to find that it could pass down the female line. Actually, he rather enjoyed explaining things to her. At last here was someone who could appreciate what he was doing. He was drawn to expounding the delights of the new filing system he was introducing. She asked if she could come along and see it in operation.

  Here, however, he drew back. This was a step too far. What would they think at the Palace? Bringing a women in? Even his sister. No, no, it was too—

  ‘It seems a pity,’ she said. ‘Such an interesting system…’

  That was true, he thought. And maybe she was right: it probably would work in a hospital. Perhaps, he suggested diffidently, he might come to her office and think about what might be made of it. She jumped at the idea.

  Afterwards, he chided himself. What he should be doing was arranging a marriage for her, not introducing her to the pleasure of office management. He was merely reinforcing her in her foolishness and, yes, sinfulness. As the head of the family, he was a let down.

  ***

  Things were accumulating on Owen’s desk, too. Almost every hour reports came in of disturbances here, trouble there. Attacks on people in one place, or property in another. More and more people were getting killed.

  Willoughby had thought that getting rid of Zaghlul would end the problem. But it didn’t, as Owen could have told him, had tried to tell him. It wasn’t just a case of a small group of conspirators, as loud-voiced people of the Sporting Club supposed, it was a much wider expression of feeling.

  ‘What are you doing, Owen?’ they said. ‘Jump on them!’

  ‘You don’t jump on a whole people,’ he said.

  ***

  Something had to be done about it, of course. The Army was out in force, the police were busy night and day. There were incessant meetings. Garvin was too busy to attend them. He sent his Deputy, McPhee, instead. McPhee couldn’t understand any of it. He was an old-timer and what was happening now was completely beyond his grasp. Garvin pleaded with Owen to get to the meetings if he could, to put some sense into them, but Owen himself had plenty to do. And what could he say to them?

  ‘The problem is political,’ he kept insisting. ‘Not military. Force isn’t the answer.’

  They thought he’d gone soft.

  ***

  Paul Trevelyan hadn’t been seen for days. He seemed to be spending all his time on the wire to London. Or Paris, now that the big conference at Versailles had started, and most of the British Government had moved there. At last he emerged, and when Owen went to visit him at his office, he was opening a bottle of champagne.

  ‘Just for you and me,’ he said. ‘We’ve done it!’

  ‘Done—?’

  ‘They’re sending out a Commission.’

  ‘That’s great, Paul!’ He raised the glass to his lips. ‘But—’

  But would it make any difference?

  ‘You’ve always said the problem was political, not military,’ said Paul. ‘Now we’ve got the chance of a political solution.’

  He knew Paul expected him to be pleased. And he was, he was. It was just that, in his experience, sending out busybody know-nothings from London usually didn’t help at all.

  ‘But will they get anywhere, Paul?’ he couldn’t help saying.

  ‘Oh, they will,’ said Paul confidently. ‘With me holding their hands and whispering in their ears. The important thing is to get all interested parties round a table, talking.’

  He put his finger on his lips and lowered his voice mock-conspiratorially.

  ‘There’s even a chance,’ he whispered, ‘that I might persuade the Old Man to bring back Zaghlul.’

  ‘That would be great, Paul. That really would!’

  He meant it, too. Unless you had everybody in, there wouldn’t be a chance of any agreement sticking. He raised his glass.

  ‘To you, Paul!’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Paul sipped the champagne.

  ‘And to you, of course,’ he said, putting the glass down.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘In anticipation. You’re a big part of this, you know.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that—’

  ‘Oh, but you are. They wouldn’t have come without you.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘They insisted on absolute security. For the members of the Communion. Wouldn’t come without it. Had to give an absolute guarantee. Of course, I said I could. We’ve got just the man. I said. Bags of experience. Knows Cairo like the back of his hand. If any man can keep them safe, he can.’

  ‘Thank you, Paul. Thank you very much,’ said Owen bitterly.

  Chapter Six

  Owen wanted to take a look at the hammam himself.

  He decided to pass himself off as an ordinary user of the baths’ services. The hammams were public baths and anyone could use them. And very many people did. They weren’t like public baths in European cities. In Europe people had baths in their own houses so public baths were less frequently used, less central to people’s lives. In Egypt the houses didn’t usually have baths so nearly everyone went to the hammam.

  They expected a lot from them. They went there to have their bodies put in order, to be given a good servicing, like cars being checked into a garage. It wasn’t just one bath but several, each with a different function. Massage was an integral part of it, even for the humblest user. Soaping and oiling were important. Injuries could be put right, physical weaknesses sympathetically addressed.

  But perhaps the most important function of the hammam was the social one. People went there to meet their friends and to catch up on the latest news. The issues of the day were discussed. Public opinion was registered there and possibly formed. It was a good place, then, to take the temperature of the city and Owen thought he would do that as well.

  With his dark Welsh colouring it was easy to pass himself off as a Levantine of some kind and his Arabic was certainly sufficient for that. He discarded his usual red Governmental tarboosh in favour of a nondescript one of brown plaid such as an Effendi working in a business house might wear.

  As he approached the hammam he checked to see there wasn’t a towel over the door. He had taken it for granted from the fact that Georgiades hadn’t mentioned it that it was a hammam for men only. But it might not have been. Some hammams
were mixed. Men and women went on different days and when there were women inside a towel was draped over the door. Zeinab had told him that the hammam was an important part of the Egyptian marriage market. Mothers went there to inspect the flesh and see that it was suitable for their beloved sons.

  From outside, the hammam could be taken for a small mosque, with its facade of red and white stone intermixed, panelled and arabesqued. It could be distinguished by the fact that the hammam’s entrance was usually very narrow, rather below the level of the street, and had its door recess painted green.

  From the doorway you entered first a tiny space in which a receptionist was sitting. From there you were at once ushered into the meslakh, or reception room, which was always off at an angle so that you couldn’t see directly into it from the street. This was because the reception room was also the changing room. It was also a room in which you could lie around and chat. There was an octagonal fountain in the middle of it, encased with white marble, from which there was a fierce, cold jet.

  Around the walls were white marble couches with cushions. Some of the couches had handsome gilt screens in front of them to give privacy; behind which, he thought, a package might easily be passed.

  The room was arched and domed and from some of the arches cages were hanging containing singing birds. The air was filled with their twittering and warbling.

  The m’allim, or keeper of the baths, came up smiling. He had two attendants. One took Owen’s shoes, the other his clothes. The m’allim himself took his watch, wallet, and other valuables.

  ‘Suppose I was carrying something big,’ said Owen: ‘Would you be able to keep it for me?’

  ‘If it was as big as a horse,’ said the m’allim confidently.

  ‘And fragile?’

  ‘My hands are as soft as petals, Effendi, and I would store it as in a bed of roses.’

  ‘Thank you. Yes. Well, thank you.’

  He was given towels and clogs, since in the harara which he was going to next, the floor was often wet.

  The attendant took his shoes and clothes away. The clothes were placed in a locker, which might be big enough to hold a reasonable-sized package, and the shoes placed on a rack below. The m’allim took his valuables and locked them in a special safe-like box.