The Women of the Souk

by Michael Pearce

  And someone had said: ‘There is a Kewfik man! Let us kill him and that will put a stop to all talk of peace between us.’ And someone else had said: ‘Let it be so!’ And so they killed Hamid. But, afterwards, others said that it was wrong to kill a man like that, to brush him aside as if he had been a fly, when all he had been doing was walking by.

  And there had been much dispute in the Geziret about it, with some taking one side and others the other. But Hamid’s wife had raised her voice and demanded justice. And her sisters had supported her and called on her brothers to avenge Hamid. But others had said: ‘Let us not fight over this.’ The Geziret seemed to be tearing itself apart, with men raising their hands against their brother. And the women had spoken angrily about it and said that the elders should not allow such foolishness to happen. And the elders had been taken aback that the women should raise their voices. And some had suggested that the views of a wise man should be sought.

  But Hamid’s wife had said that it was because they had been listening to the views of men who thought they were wise and were not that such a terrible event had come to pass, and that they would do better to listen to the views of some wise women. And someone had suggested the Old Woman of the souk …

  NINE

  Selim’s patrols now regularly took in the Khedivial Girls’ School. This had not been part of Owen’s assignment and Selim was uneasy about how far the Mamur Zapt’s instructions could be stretched. He met Minya every morning now at the exit from the souk which lay nearest to the Scentmakers’ Bazaar, and they walked together to the school gates. Minya was no longer accompanied by a senior girl. A senior girl had indeed been chosen for this task and for several days had walked dutifully beside her. But then the senior girl had spotted that they were also accompanied by the huge form of this devoted policeman. It was a bit embarrassing and when Minya one day had suggested that it was no longer necessary the relieved senior girl had dropped off to follow her own pursuits, which included a boy in the boys’ school. Minya had felt guilty about this but really, there was no need for the girl when Selim was so reliable. Like Selim she felt unsure about whether Selim’s remit really ought to include accompanying her to school every morning. She accused herself of taking the Mamur Zapt’s name in vain and of also corrupting the police force. She wasn’t quite sure what corrupting was, but she felt comfortable having the big policeman beside her. Moreover, he sometimes gave her sherbet and she liked to suck her finger and put it into the sherbet powder and then suck it again. She worried that in some obscure way this might be held to be corruption, too, but the sherbet was nice and she was sure that there was nothing deeply wrong with it. She tried to finish the sherbet before she got to the school gates so no one else knew.

  When she saw the Mamur Zapt that morning though, she felt shaken. The Mamur Zapt, Layla had told her, knew everything about everything, so he would almost certainly know about the sherbet, and also the corruption.

  Selim, too, was rather shaken when the figure of the Mamur Zapt suddenly appeared beside him at the school gates. He felt that some explanation was necessary.

  ‘It was on my way,’ he said, ‘and I thought I would speak to the little girl and see that she was still all right.’

  ‘And was she?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Selim assured him.

  ‘Not still worried as much as she was?’

  ‘Oh, no, no! She’s fine now.’

  ‘Good. Well, just keep an eye on her as you go past on your patrols. There’s no longer a need to make a thing of it, but it’s as well to keep an eye open, just in case.’

  Selim swore he would keep an eye open and continued on his way, in bliss.

  Owen’s way was taking him to the Khedivial. To which he had been summoned by the Headmistress. He wondered why, and hoped it was not because there had been another incident like the one that had led to Marie’s disappearance. Pausing for a moment outside the door to the Headmistress’s study, he felt that old uneasiness from his own school days.

  The Headmistress rose to greet him, and, indeed, she should in Egypt, where the men are always a superior figure to the women. In the case of the Headmistress, however, he was not disposed to insist upon it. She was a tall, imposing woman, giving way to no one, and certainly not Mamur Zapt.

  She asked how the search for Marie was going. Owen crossed his fingers and said that he hoped they were beginning to get somewhere. The Headmistress nodded. It was having an effect on the school, she said. The initial shock had given way to – she was not quite sure, but she thought that it had been replaced by something deep down which was, in its way, even more worrying. They felt that something ought to have been done by now. It wasn’t just impatience, it was as if the shock was still working within them. She had expected the impact to have begun to dwindle, but it hadn’t.

  Did the girls talk about it, asked Owen.

  The Headmistress said that she was sure they did but not as obviously as had been the case at first, They all wanted something to be done; and, with nothing apparent happening, were becoming predisposed to take it upon themselves.

  ‘Like the procession and parade,’ said Owen.

  ‘Yes. When they did that, at first I was furious. I wanted to keep them all in or set them a million lines. But then I settled down, and then I began to feel … rather proud, actually.’

  ‘Rightly so,’ said Owen.

  She looked at him.

  ‘You think so? Not everyone does.’ She indicated a pile of letters on her desk.

  ‘Letters of protest,’ she said. ‘Mainly from fathers. “I don’t pay to send my daughter to a school where …” That sort of thing. I told the girls about them. That was probably a mistake. They all wanted to go home and tell their parents off. The fathers will have found that particularly hard to take. Well, never mind, we’ll weather that. However, there is something else I want to discuss with you. Layla has not told me about your allowing her to participate in identifying Marie, but someone else has.’

  ‘I’m sorry. They should not have …’

  ‘Told me about it? I’m not bothered about that. What I am bothered about is your using Layla to do something like that. It was not something for a young girl to undertake.’

  ‘I should have used someone else.’

  ‘Yes, you should have.’

  ‘But …’

  He stopped.

  ‘I can imagine how it went,’ she said. ‘Layla is a very determined girl. But you shouldn’t have allowed it.’

  ‘There was protection, of course.’

  ‘Of course. But still you should not have asked her to do it. She is just a girl. Or was just a girl.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She has grown up. Suddenly and too fast. She is no longer a girl now. She is a young woman.’

  Next, since he was in that area, he went to the boys’ school that Mahmoud had told him about, which young Shawquat had attended, and outside which Marie had sometimes waited for him. He wondered how she had got on. This was a rough area and girls, especially well-to-do girls like Marie, did not go there by themselves.

  ‘The Mamur Zapt?’

  The Headmaster looked surprised and more than a little apprehensive. It was, as Mahmoud had told him, a poor school in a poor area, as so many of them were. Egypt was undergoing a massive educational change from small, religious schools, with Heads whose only claim to knowledge was a thorough acquaintance with the Koran, to a modern system where instruction was given in basic subjects such as mathematics, geography and recent history. The subject matter was new to the teachers and they had had to be specially trained. Their own academic background was usually very limited, so the standard was not very high, although it could be seen to be improving. Teachers’ pay was low and they were not well-regarded. And yet they were often dedicated, committed people who believed that the future of Egypt lay in their hands. Mahmoud, who knew them far better than Owen did, admired them; they were kindred to himself, for they believed strongly tha
t they were helping to put the country right.

  Although many were devout Muslims, an increasing number were not; this added to the strain between the traditional religious educators and the new, modern, more Western style of education.

  The shabbiness of the state system was reflected in the building. The Headmaster shared his study with his other teachers, and, when Owen went in, with two older boys, who were doing more advanced work. It was small, pokey and squeezed for space. Books were piled on the floor, or leaned in drunken columns against the walls. Open exercise books were spread all over the Headmaster’s desk. Until recently there had been no exercise books at all. Pupils had written on slates.

  ‘Is it about young Shawquat?’ the Headmaster said. ‘I hope he has done nothing foolish. He is a good boy. He has just got mixed up with some rather bad ones; not from this school, I hasten to add. And it is not the school’s fault, it is the area’s. There are too few positive things for them to do, too few good people for them to learn from. There is nowhere for them to go outside school. I sound defensive, I know, and I suppose I am defensive, but in the Geziret there is so much that you have to defend children against. Not least, poverty. I go on too much, I am sorry!’

  ‘At least there is one person who speaks for them,’ said Owen, ‘and while that is so, they are not without hope.’

  ‘Thank you. You are generous. Too generous. I have overstated things. I tend to do that.’

  ‘It is right that you should. In a place like the Geziret.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to give you the impression that the Geziret is all bad.’

  ‘I know the Geziret.’

  The Headmaster sighed.

  ‘In England it must be very different.’

  ‘There are plenty of Headmasters who speak as you do.’

  ‘Headmasters tend to,’ he said wryly. ‘But, forgive me, we have strayed from what you came to talk to me about. Young Shawquat—’

  ‘Actually, I came to talk to you about music.’

  ‘About music?’

  ‘But also, perhaps, about young Shawquat. He used to play his nay, I gather, after school in the playground. Where people came to listen.’

  ‘They did, yes.’

  ‘His schoolfellows. And not just his schoolfellows, children from all around.’

  ‘That is true, yes.’

  ‘And not just children.’

  ‘No. People came out of their houses to listen.’

  ‘Can you tell me about the people?’

  The Headmaster looked surprised.

  ‘Well, they were just ordinary people.’

  ‘The Kauris, for instance.’

  ‘We have a lot of Kauris about here. It is a large family.’

  ‘And some of them are good, some bad?’

  ‘As in all families.’

  ‘But some were very bad, lawless in fact?’

  ‘I have to confess that that is true.’

  ‘But still they liked music? Young Shawquat’s nay playing, for instance?’

  ‘They did, that is so. But why are you asking this?’

  ‘Among the people who came to listen was the Kewfik daughter.’

  ‘She was Ali’s friend, yes. She was often here. After school, that is; she went to school first.’

  ‘Yes, a dutiful girl, I think. She would have gone to school first. But there were men who saw her. And saw that she was with young Shawquat. Saw that they were together. Which made it easy.’

  ‘Easy?’

  ‘To seize her one day when she walked home from school.’

  The Headmaster was silent. For quite a long time.

  ‘It is possible. But – but – what makes you suppose this?’

  ‘Because young Shawquat told me.’

  The Headmaster didn’t say anything for some while. Then: ‘If he told you that,’ said the Headmaster, ‘then it is true.’

  ‘They saw her with young Shawquat, and they recognised the girl he was with. They knew that she was a Kewfik and that she was rich. And that her family was. And that they would pay highly for her. So one day, as she was walking home with young Shawquat, after listening to his playing, they seized her.’

  ‘But why did he not say?’

  ‘He was too frightened. So he says.’

  ‘So he says?’

  ‘So he says. One boy against many men. In the Geziret. He knew what happened to people who went against the gang. And I think they threatened him, and told him what would happen, probably to the girl as well as him, if he spoke out.’

  ‘Poor boy!’ said the Headmaster.

  ‘And poor girl!’ said Owen. ‘Now he reproaches himself for not standing up to them. But how could he stand up to them, when they were many and he was one, and he but a boy, a child still in many ways? Nevertheless, he feels that he should have done something. At least spoken to someone. He cannot forgive himself that he did nothing to save the girl, whom he loves, he says, beyond all reason. He tried to run away. He stopped going near her school. He tried to hide, going only to listen to an awalim he favoured. Then creeping away.’

  ‘I can believe it,’ said the Headmaster, much agitated. ‘In the Geziret you don’t talk about what you may have seen, you hold together, presenting a wall to the outside world. It is to them the law, their law, not ours, and adhered to more strongly than ours. He would have feared death, but, more than that, it would be going against the whole Geziret. Even his father would not have done that! And, besides’ – he grimaced – ‘have you met his father? He is not a man who would feel for the girl on this, nor for his son. He was always against the rich. He would have seen it as a blow against the mighty. Ali would have had no one to turn to. Not even his own family.’

  ‘There are other bonds beside family.’

  ‘As strong as family?’

  ‘Music.’

  ‘I do not think even that—’

  ‘In Ali’s case.’

  ‘Well, yes, perhaps. But—’

  ‘All the stronger, perhaps, because his family is as it is.’

  ‘It is true that there were several of them who used to hang around together.’

  ‘And played together, perhaps? Made up a small band? As the young sometimes do?’

  ‘I can think of—’

  ‘Could you introduce me to them?’

  ‘He was all right. A good player. Should have stayed with us.’

  ‘Are you still a band?’

  ‘It wasn’t the same after he left.’

  ‘The nay held the band together.’

  ‘First Mustapha drifted away.’

  ‘Then Ahmed.’

  ‘He was no loss. But Mustapha was. With the nay gone, and then the ’ood …’

  ‘We sort of drifted apart.’

  ‘It was that girl.’

  ‘That’s what happens,’ said Owen sympathetically.

  ‘She was ambitious, that’s what was the trouble.’

  ‘Wasn’t he?’

  ‘No, not in the way that she was.’

  ‘Have you tried to get him back?’

  ‘He’s gone off on his own.’

  ‘Not made a go of it, though.’

  ‘So there’s still a chance, then, of you getting back together,’ suggested Owen.

  ‘No, no, it’s not like that.’

  ‘Get the girl back,’ said Owen. ‘That’s my advice. Then he’d follow soon enough.’

  ‘No chance!’

  ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘It’s always like that,’ said Owen. ‘People come and go. Especially girls.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true,’ said someone ruefully.

  ‘You’ve just got to go on trying,’ said Owen.

  ‘No, no, it’s not like that. She’s locked up.’

  ‘What, some old man has got his eyes on her? And the parents won’t let her go out in case she runs off?’

  ‘No, no. She’s been snatched.’

  ‘Snatched?’

  ‘Kidnapped.’

&nb
sp; ‘Really?’ said Owen sceptically.

  ‘Yes, really.’

  ‘That sort of thing doesn’t happen!’

  ‘It does. In the Geziret.’

  ‘Well, I’m – she’s not really been kidnapped?’

  ‘She has.’

  ‘Do you know where she’s being held? I mean, you could let her out and then you’ll be able to get her back. She’d be grateful, and—’

  ‘No, no, it’s nothing like that! She’s being held by some hard men, who expect to make a lot of money out of her. Really hard men! So you don’t want to blunder in there!’

  ‘But you know where she is?’

  ‘Thinking of trying to get her out?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Don’t think it, friend. That way you’ll stay alive.’

  ‘I told my girl friend about it, and she said just the same as you. Get her out! And get the money for yourself.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t say that actually,’ said Owen. ‘But it’s not a bad idea!’

  ‘Well, she didn’t say that exactly. She said they were nasty bastards and it ought not to be allowed. There’s a real girl at the end of this and someone ought to get her out. I said to her just what I said to you. “That’s the way to get your throat cut,” I said. “Men are all the same,” she said, “when it comes to dodging responsibility.” “Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “I’m not like that!” “He’d get her out and then take her home for himself,” said one of my mates.” “And that’s just what I’m afraid of,” she said.’

  Selim, meanwhile, had been hanging around unobtrusively, just out of earshot but not out of eyeshot. It had become very hot and the sweat was trickling down his face. He sat down in the shade.

  No sooner had he sat down than, the next moment, Owen was there! Selim couldn’t believe it. The moment you’d taken your weight off your feet he was right next to you.

  ‘Selim,’ he said, ‘see that man? I want you to follow him. Don’t let him see you, but watch where he goes. If it’s his own place, so much the better. And then come back and tell me. And if there’s a woman there, keep your eye on her especially.’