The Women of the Souk

by Michael Pearce

  ‘It is,’ said Mahmoud, ‘a kind of flute. It is, possibly, the most played instrument in Egypt. Children play it. Snake charmers play it. Itinerant beggars play it. Everyone plays it. It is where you start if you want to learn how to play music.’

  ‘It must be fairly simple to play,’ Owen suggested mildly.

  ‘Oh, yes, and cheap too. It is really just a reed with holes in it. You blow through a tiny aperture with your lips pressed against the edge of the tube,’ Mahmoud demonstrated using the side of a pencil, ‘and the sound comes out through the holes. There are six holes in front and behind. By blowing with more or less force sounds are produced which can vary in pitch, some high, others low. A good performer can regulate the sound very precisely, and can even scale many octaves. A very good performer can produce lovely mellow tones. But only a very good performer. Someone who is good is worth going a long way to hear.’

  ‘It sounds as if this Ali is like that.’

  ‘We’ll take you along to hear a good nay player some time.’

  He went to see Layla and asked her about Marie’s friends.

  ‘Oh, she has lots!’

  But, at that time, she went off by herself. She had done a lot of reading. Novels, certainly, mostly French ones because they had ideas in them and Marie was interested in ideas. But lately she had stopped that and seemed to want to talk. But there was no one she could talk to.

  Surely, the other girls …

  They were all right in their way but Marie wanted something different.

  ‘Boy friends?’

  Layla backed off a little at this. But then she recovered stoutly. Boy friends, certainly. But the boys of their age were not, in practice, intellectually of their age. They were a bit backward, really, that was the truth of it. And, anyway, their families went mad the moment they saw them with a boy! They hustled you away and your mother insisted on having a ‘good talk’ with you. As if you have never heard of love-making! And, indeed, a lot of the boys hadn’t. No, said Layla, you could keep boys as far as she was concerned, and she thought Marie had felt the same way. But then she had started being interested in music.

  Had Marie had a boy friend?

  Well, she had and she hadn’t. She had tried several boys out, boys who had been in the Khedivial Boys’ School across the way, but found them wanting: too young, actually. So then she had tried out some of the boys from the colleges but found them unsatisfactory too: too old! They had wanted to push things along a bit further than she was comfortable with. And that was always the problem. Men had no sense of balance! They always wanted to go too far or too fast, or they didn’t know what it was all about at all! Layla thought there was a big sex problem developing in Egypt. Boys couldn’t talk to girls and girls couldn’t talk to boys, not while they were the way they were. It was getting to be a national crisis.

  ‘What did Owen think?’ she asked innocently.

  Owen had just enough sense to wriggle out of this one.

  He had not given this the thought he should have done, he said, but, yes, there did seem to be some difficulties somewhere. There were always difficulties, for instance, with soldiers in barracks …

  ‘Oh?’ said Layla. ‘What sort of difficulties?’

  Owen refused to be trapped.

  ‘Going back to the question of Marie,’ he said.

  Reluctantly, Layla abandoned this promising detour.

  The nearest Marie had come to a boy friend was when, about a year ago, she had taken up with some students. It had all seemed to be going well, when the boy it seemed to be going particularly well with suddenly dropped out of the picture. Layla was not exactly sure why but thought he might have been warned off.

  ‘By the Kewfiks?’

  Layla thought so.

  ‘I mean, they were big and he was small. They were rich and he was poor. I think if they had left it alone it would probably have petered out. But by making a fuss about it they gave it a new lease of life. They put up the backs of both of them. Marie and Ali, that was his name. Anyway, they chased him away and we didn’t see anything of him for quite some time. But then the next thing we know, they were back together again. I think it was about that time that Marie took up music. Or maybe it was him, she took up him, and he played music, the nay, all the time … I don’t know what she saw in him. There wasn’t much conversation from him. Nor ideas for that matter, which she had been so interested in. I drifted away from her at that point. I mean, I like the nay, but a little of it goes a long way. She moved away from us generally. She said she had gone off men.’

  A little later in the morning there was a tap on the door.

  ‘Kewfik Effendi to see you,’ said Nikos. ‘He says it’s urgent.’

  ‘I thought he was in hospital?’

  ‘No, it’s the younger Kewfik. The nephew.’

  ‘Show him in.’

  Into the room came the old Harrowian.

  ‘Owen, the most awful thing has come up!’

  ‘Marie?’

  ‘Yes. Absolutely awful!’

  ‘Where did they find her?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where did they find the body? Presumably they found the body?’

  ‘No, no, I don’t think so.’

  ‘What, then?’ said Owen, puzzled.

  ‘She hasn’t a bean! Not a bean, old chap. It’s all been spent. My uncle’s financial wallah has been in to see me this morning. And, Owen, this is the most frightful thing: he is saying that I did it! Cleaned them out, that’s what these financial wallahs are saying. Well, how was I to know? My father never told me! And now he’s going absolutely mad! Blaming me, of all things!

  ‘“Father, if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s yours. I distinctly remember you telling me I could have what I wanted.” “Help yourself, dear boy!” That’s what he said. So I did. And now he’s asking where it’s all gone. That’s hardly fair, is it? Anyway, those banking chaps ought to have told me. And they ought to have told him! Right at the start of all this. Then we’d have known where we stood. “I feel let down, Father, I really do!” That’s what I told him.

  ‘Here was I expecting a fortune, and making my dispositions accordingly, when it transpired that all the time there wasn’t any money there! He ought to have been on top of this, he really ought. He waited until it had all gone and then he handed it over to me! “I’m sorry to say this, Father, but that’s hardly honest of you!” That’s what I told him, Owen. To his face.

  ‘And do you know what he said? He practically accused me of having had my hand in the till! I may have occasionally helped myself to loose change, but that’s all. And he never told me not to. And, anyway, it’s ridiculous to say that I’ve cleaned them out! “There’s plenty of money there.” I distinctly remember him saying we were made for life. And another thing, what were those banker chaps doing? I thought they were supposed to be the experts. They ought to have kept an eye on it. I’ll bet they’re the ones who have been helping themselves at our expense! At my uncle’s expense! At the expense of the whole family! “You ought to have stood over them and made sure they were doing their job,” I said. “Instead you left it all for me to sort out. I call that very unhandsome.”

  ‘And what about this girl? This one who’s got herself kidnapped. “We can always fall back on her,” he said. “We can always marry her off to you.” But what would be the point of that, if she hasn’t got any money? I asked the financial wallahs about that this morning. “It’s her money that you’ve spent,” they said. “No, no,” I said, “her old man was always careful with money. He put it aside for her and now, damn me, when we try to put our hands on it, we find that it’s not there!”

  ‘And now they have the nerve to say that’s because it’s been spent, and I am the one who has spent it! This is flagrant dishonesty! I shall take them through the courts. No, I won’t! They’re as bad as the bankers. In fact, I’ll bet they’re in it with the bankers: robbers, that’s what they all are. And they’re robbing me! I know what
it is. I’m not a fool, you know! They’re setting me up. They’re shifting the blame on to me. They’re all in it together. My father has set me up, my uncle has set me up. Everyone has set me up. I shall complain to the Khedive!

  ‘I won’t have it! I tell you, I won’t have it! If there’s a hole in the money somewhere, then they just have to fill it. This is not some little barber we’re talking about, it’s the Kewfiks!

  ‘I tell you, we’ve got money. Loads of it. And if we don’t have the ready, we can call it in. And if we can’t call it in, I could always – well, yes, I could, at a pinch, I could marry that girl, for instance. My father always said that she was our insurance.

  ‘Except she’s been kidnapped! They’ve lost her, just as they have the rest of our money. “It’s the caracol for you, my man,” I said. “You and all the rest of them. Prison is where you ought to be, my man, and where you will be as soon as I can fix it! No money? I’ll bet there is money, tucked away somewhere. Well, you just produce it!” They can’t hide my money away, just for their own selfish ends.

  ‘Owen, can’t you do something? Flog the money out of them or something?’

  Owen clucked his tongue sympathetically and said he was sorry to hear about Ali Osman’s troubles. But were they his troubles? How much of the Kewfik finances had been put in his charge?

  Ali Osman did not know.

  ‘There will be a record, surely?’

  Ali Osman didn’t know about that. His father had told him that from now on the family money was his responsibility and that was it.

  ‘I daresay my uncle will have got it straight,’ he said hopefully, ‘before passing responsibility to my father.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Owen.

  ‘My uncle is the sort of man who would have lawyers. Dozens of them!’

  ‘Of course, he may not have been able to see to that since having his stroke.’

  ‘What would happen in that case?’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to ask the lawyers.’

  ‘But won’t that take some time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, what shall I do for ready?’

  ‘There are people in the souk who would advance you money.’

  ‘Tried them,’ said Ali Osman. ‘In fact, I’ve tried them a lot lately.’

  ‘There will always be someone willing to make you an advance.’

  Ali Osman, reflecting on his more recent experience, was not quite so sure.

  ‘And then, of course,’ said Owen, ‘there’s the question of the ransom.’

  ‘Ransom?’

  ‘For Marie Kewfik.’

  ‘Well, we can hardly pay that now, can we?’

  ‘Her mother has, I gather, been drumming up financial support.’

  ‘Has she? Well, that’s worth looking into. Do you think she might be willing to divert some?’

  ‘I doubt it. She’s had to scrape around as it is. What there is, is earmarked for the ransom. If it turns out you have to pay it.’

  ‘You mean we may not have to pay it?’

  ‘If we catch the kidnappers, and succeed in freeing Marie, then you won’t need to pay a ransom. That is, of course, what we are trying to do. But, naturally there’s always the chance that things could go wrong.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Well, they might kill Marie.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Ali Osman. ‘That’s a bit drastic.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ali Osman considered. Then he brightened up.

  ‘But if that happened, we would keep the money.’

  ‘Your aunt would have the money. She may not give it to you.’

  ‘But I’m the senior member of the family now. The family money is now my responsibility. Wouldn’t I be the one who decides what happens to it?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Owen.

  FIVE

  At last what he had been waiting for arrived.

  It came in the unlikely form of a junior official from one of the banks, complete with fez and a short cane, to demonstrate his superiority to ordinary folk.

  It was a simple request for Mamur Zapt to call, accompanied if possible by Ali Osman Kewfik Effendi; and as soon as he learned that additional fact, Owen knew exactly what it was about.

  The Gamaliya Quarter, which was where the most imposing offices of the city were located, was a great mixture. The houses were old and large, but most of them had been divided up and converted into offices. The remains of the old Mameluke houses were still apparent though, if you looked up. The upper storeys had huge oriel windows with lattices of rich and ancient meshrebiya from the old days through which the ladies of the harem had in the past been able to look down on the streets below without being observed. The streets had overhanging wooden porches. The woodwork, there since time immemorial, had warped into picturesque shapes and was so polished, not by hand but by sand, that it positively shone. The doors opened out onto the streets and through them you could glimpse fine panelling and marble floors. After the noise and bustle of the streets, the insides of the houses were dark and cool and calm. An Albanian in his national dress came forward and ushered them in.

  The men there had probably never spoken to the Mamur Zapt but they knew at once who he was.

  ‘Honoured, Mamur Zapt!’

  ‘And on me, too, the honour!’

  He was shown into a large inner room smelling curiously of sultanas, with carpets, not tapestry, on the walls and a sunken fountain bubbling at one end.

  ‘You know Kewfik Effendi, I expect?’ Owen asked.

  ‘We do indeed. How is your uncle, Kewfik Effendi?’

  ‘Not too well. But recovering.’

  ‘We are glad to hear it. And your father?’

  ‘Taking a breather on the coast.’

  ‘It would be nice if we could all do that, but that is not yet for us, is it, Mamur Zapt?’

  ‘Alas, not,’ said Owen.

  ‘And your – cousin, is it? The poor girl who has been kidnapped?’

  ‘We hope she is still well,’ said Owen.

  ‘As do we, Mamur Zapt. As do we.’

  ‘Worth a bit, still,’ said Ali Osman. ‘If she is still alive.’

  ‘For your sake, as well as hers, we hope that is so.’

  ‘It is, of course, on that business that we have come.’

  ‘Of course. And if we could help you, we would. But I doubt if there is much that we can do.’

  ‘You received a note from the kidnappers?’

  ‘That is so, yes.’

  ‘Why did it come to you?’

  ‘They must have known that we were the Kewfiks’ bankers.’

  ‘How was the note presented?’

  ‘At the door. The janitor took it in.’

  ‘What was said?’

  ‘I wasn’t there. But enough for it to be taken at once to our president.’

  ‘Money was demanded?’

  ‘Yes. The bank refused. It said it would do nothing without authorisation. That is our standard procedure.’

  ‘And their response?’

  ‘Another message was sent, which said that it would be the worse for the girl if they did not get what they wanted.’

  ‘And you said, that may be, but that without proper authorisation you would do nothing.’

  There was a thin smile.

  ‘The Mamur Zapt has met these situations before.’

  ‘Indeed, he has. Did you arrange a subsequent meeting?’

  ‘No, but we said one would be necessary.’

  ‘You, too, have been in this situation before.’

  ‘Alas, yes.’

  ‘You are doing well. Keep playing them, but let us know.’

  ‘There are dangers.’

  ‘Yes. The principal one is that they might panic.’

  ‘We will play them as long as we can. But the danger increases.’

  ‘So negotiations cannot be prolonged too much. Nevertheless, prolonging is important. It gives us time.’

  ‘We s
hall do our best.’ The man paused. ‘I have a daughter of my own,’ he said.

  ‘So have I. And that is why we cannot let it go on too long.’

  The man inclined his head.

  ‘It is good you have experience,’ he said. ‘When I did this before, I was young and inexperienced, as was everyone on our side, and so were they. The child died.’

  ‘We will try to see that doesn’t happen. Give the impression if you can that we are willing to meet their demands. It is just that we have to be sure of the details.’

  The man nodded.

  ‘We will do our best. We always do the best that we can for our customers.’

  ‘Keep negotiating. Say that the father is in hospital and that the uncle is old. Say, perhaps, that it is necessary to go through the mother. Say that she loves her daughter and will agree but that it takes her time to understand. They will believe that, thinking that the nature of women.’

  ‘They have not met my wife! But, yes, they probably will believe that.’

  ‘Tell them we are doing all we can to hurry things up. Tell them they can be confident of success. But that if harm comes to the child, the family will spare no money in tracking them down.’

  ‘It would be well to say that the Mamur Zapt cares particularly about this case and will spare nothing to ensure that, if anything goes wrong, they will certainly receive curious punishments. That, too, they will believe.’

  ‘We understand each other, I think,’ said Owen.

  ‘We will do all we can. As I said, I have a daughter of my own.’

  He hesitated.

  ‘If we could whet the appetite a little, it could help.’

  ‘Pay something in advance, you mean?’

  ‘A little, yes. A very little, to show that we are serious. Not too much, however. Otherwise they will think we are easy.’

  ‘Can that be arranged?’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps, though we had better make it a specific sum. The amount, we leave to you.’

  ‘Could we agree on who is handling it on your side? Yourself, preferably. The fewer people in on this the better.’

  ‘I will handle it personally.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And on your side?’

  ‘Not me personally. Do it through my man, Nikos. Do you know him? Nikos the Copt.’