The Women of the Souk

by Michael Pearce

  But then there came this stupid business with Hamid. And then, suddenly, things began to go wrong.

  Why did the Kauris have to kill the delivery man just now, when they were supposed to be working together? It would destroy any hope of an alliance that would unite the people to come out and march in the streets. That one foolish act disrupted the system of supply which he had so carefully set up, and drew the attention of the Mamur Zapt. The police were round all over him. The tension that always existed between the Kauris and the Kewfiks had once again burst open.

  And on top of all that, there was the kidnapped girl.

  The eyes of the world had turned suddenly on the Geziret. It was as if a great spotlight had suddenly been switched on and trained on him and his doings. Things which hitherto had seemed irrelevant, either because they were not to the purpose or too minor to bother about, suddenly became the subject of everybody’s attention. That Kewfik girl had nothing to do with him or his work. Yet she had drawn the attention of even more police to the Geziret, just at a time when he could have done without that. Worse, thanks to his son, it had become something to do with him; thanks to the activities of his son, the police attention was beginning to focus on him personally. He couldn’t set it aside or ignore it. Questions were being asked by the Mamur Zapt. And one question led to another.

  The fact that they had alerted the Mamur Zapt had not pleased the people he worked for. The British, for some strange reason, seemed to pay a lot of attention to kidnapped girls, and even more attention to drugs and that, as Shawquat’s backers had pointed out, meant that they would be turning their attention to political activities which in the past had been managed discreetly, even secretly.

  And so now they blamed him, Shawquat!

  Everything was beginning to go wrong!

  Perhaps all was not yet lost, he told himself. Perhaps the Old Woman would work her wonders and produce a settlement. Perhaps then the work could go on. He buried his head in his hands and groaned.

  And then, just at that moment there was a knock on the door. His wife went to answer. When she returned, her face was pale.

  ‘The Mamur Zapt!’ she said.

  ‘If it’s about the boy …’ said Shawquat.

  ‘It is not.’

  ‘He is no son of mine. He is a loafer, a waster, a dreamer. And will come to no good!’

  ‘I have not come about him,’ said Owen.

  ‘Then?’

  ‘I have come about you.’

  ‘Me? I have done nothing! What have the police against me?’

  ‘Drugs.’

  ‘Drugs? I don’t touch them. Never have!’

  ‘But you carry them for others.’

  ‘That is not so! Who has put this upon me?’

  ‘A dead man.’

  ‘A dead man? But—’

  ‘Hamid.’

  ‘Hamid? But he cannot have told you anything! He’s dead.’

  ‘Dead men sometimes speak.’

  ‘Look, his death was nothing to do with me. I had no hand in that.’

  ‘He was carrying for you.’

  ‘Occasionally, he carried things for me. But—’

  ‘Drugs.’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘The scentmaker makes them up and then sends them to the stables.’

  ‘To the stables, perhaps, but—’

  ‘Addressed to you. I know, because after Hamid died, someone else stepped in for him. One of my men.’

  ‘Your men?’

  ‘Yes. And I opened the package.’

  ‘I – I—’

  ‘It is no good. I have spoken to the scentmaker, and he says he makes up packages regularly for you. But sends them to you at the stables.’

  ‘The scentmaker is a man of no account!’

  ‘There are others who will speak in his support! Come, your hands were on the package. You may have used Hamid, but it was your hands that received it from him. The scentmaker may have put the package together, but he did it at your direction. And he sent it to you, and what I want to know now is what you then did with it. You do not use them yourself, I think?’

  ‘No. Never.’

  ‘You are a God-fearing man, isn’t that so?’

  ‘It is so.’

  ‘And would not take them yourself.’

  ‘I never took for myself.’

  ‘But you passed to others? Is that not so?’

  ‘It is so,’ Shawquat said, after a moment.

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘I – I cannot give their names. I do not know them.’

  ‘You know who you passed them to.’

  ‘He did not give me his name.’

  ‘Come!’

  ‘People at the stables.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I have seen what was in the package and it was of fine quality. A man working at the stables could not afford it. So?’

  ‘Others. Yes, others.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I cannot tell you.’

  ‘Why not? Because you are afraid?’

  ‘Yes, yes!’

  ‘Who are you afraid of?’

  ‘He is a big man.’

  ‘So am I. His name!’

  ‘Ali Fingari,’ said Shawquat reluctantly.

  ‘Ali Fingari? Ali Osman Fingari?’

  ‘No. His father.’

  The elder Ali Fingari was, unfortunately, not at home.

  ‘Tell him, I’ll wait,’ said Owen.

  He did not have to wait long because as Ali Fingari was leaving by the back door he was seized by Owen’s men. They led him round to the front of the house and in to the mandar’ah where Owen was sitting waiting for him.

  ‘Captain Owen, I protest!’

  ‘I wouldn’t bother.’

  ‘I am a man of some consequence. Greater consequence, probably, than you suppose.’

  ‘I know who you are.’

  ‘But you don’t know who stands behind me!’

  ‘If you are referring to the Khedive, I have spoken to him already.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Yes. As I always do. I am the Khedive’s servant. When I act, it is for him.’

  ‘You have already spoken to him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘About – about—?’

  ‘About the ways in which you raise money to fund your political enterprises, yes.’

  ‘But – but – I am a long-standing supporter of the Khedive!’

  ‘And he of you. But that does not mean he supports everything you do. Dealing in drugs, for example.’

  ‘This man – this man who has just been killed—’

  ‘Hamid.’

  ‘Is that his name?’

  ‘The one who carried the drugs on your behalf?’

  ‘Not – not on my behalf. On his own behalf. He looked at this as a way to make money for himself—’

  ‘There are those who say not.’

  ‘But you can never trust these men, Captain Owen.’

  ‘I don’t trust anyone. And that includes you. As I told the Khedive.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He said it was very wise of me. And that he wishes he had followed the same course himself. But there, he said, he has always been too trusting. Especially of those close to him. He knows in his heart that it is foolish, but he can’t not trust those he works with every day. Life would be unbearable otherwise. He realises that people let him down but it is a risk that he feels he has to take. I think he was particularly disappointed in your case.’

  ‘But – but – he knew!’

  ‘He says he didn’t.’

  ‘But that’s not true!’

  ‘It is your word against his. A Pasha’s word against the Khedive’s. Guess whose word will count in the end.’

  ‘But – but – that’s not fair!’

  ‘Who said that life near the throne was ever fair?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘What we have to do now, I think, is to sit down – here, in this be
autiful room, will do; the alternative is the Bab-el-Khalk – and talk quietly, as two friends – as we are friends, are we not? And we shall see if we can get somewhere, without necessarily having to have recourse to the Courts. The legal one, of course, is what I am talking about.’

  Ali Fingari swallowed.

  ‘And if I – if I talk now, here, as you suggest, would that mean I would not have to talk in the Courts? The legal ones, that is?’

  ‘It depends on the Khedive. And, naturally, he is a man to be trusted.’

  ‘What is it you want to know?’

  What Owen wanted to know was how far the political dealing and drug dealing went. At a place like the Egyptian Royal Court, in those days, there was always manoeuvring, not least by the Khedive himself. But Owen always liked to keep up to date with the manoeuvres. Then he could contain them. Containment was what he was after. Getting rid of them altogether was out of the question. He suspected that Whitehall was just the same. It was the way of the world.

  Ali Fingari spilled all. And then Owen left him quietly to stew at home until, with the Khedive, he could decide what to do with him.

  ‘I am shocked!’ said the younger Ali Osman Fingari. ‘More than shocked: deeply hurt! To think that my old man was setting me up so that I would carry the can while he would get off scot-free if anything went wrong, well, it’s outrageous. I have a suspicion that he thought things were about to go wrong and that’s why he was getting out of the way. And leaving me in it, the scoundrel! And all the time he pretends he had no money and leaves me to carry that can too!’

  ‘Of course, by the time all this ends it will probably be the truth,’ said Owen. ‘Your father will be left with no money.’

  ‘And what about me?’ asked Osman anxiously.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Don’t tell me! It will all be gone again. Only the Khedive will have it this time!’

  It had seemed a good idea at the time, when Layla had propounded it in the classroom. In the colder light of day, however, problems arose. Mostly they were practical problems. First, there was the question of the nay itself. It was a flute-like instrument made originally from a single reed and blown. Everyone was familiar with it – it was probably the most common instrument of them all – but how far would the sound carry? Would it be lost in the street or would it reach into the houses, where, after all, Marie was likely to be? Illumination was sought from Ali Shawquat, who was not only a player himself of much experience but also the one who was most likely to be playing it on the day. He said that the way he would play it on this occasion would penetrate through walls of iron and doors of brass. Owen was not entirely reassured but let it go.

  No, for Ali the problem was not how he should play it but where he should play it. Somewhere in the Geziret, no doubt, but the Geziret was a big district: where precisely?

  They didn’t have to be too precise about it, Layla said: Ali Shawquat was prepared to play his nay on behalf of his beloved anywhere. He would play all day, he would, he swore, cover every inch of the Geziret. If the nay could be heard, it would be heard. In its favour was the fact that the Geziret was a poor quarter through which there was little traffic. Admittedly, the traffic would consist only of donkeys, camels and the occasional cart or even more occasional horse-drawn arabeah. Arabeahs were the taxi of Cairo, but in the Geziret there was not much call for taxis. In the Geziret the nay’s sound would travel through and into the houses with ease. Besides, where they had doors, the doors would be open. It would be rather, said McPhee in an unfortunate comparison, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin: the rats, or in this case, the inhabitants of the Geziret would come running.

  Owen was still not convinced and asked Ali Shawquat if he could identify more accurately the places where the kidnappers were likely to be found. He couldn’t. His mind had been on other things, and he had not taken it in.

  Owen’s next intended port of call was the instrument repair shop, where so many of the Geziret musical instruments went for repair, but on his way there he remembered that he might have a more immediate source of information in Ali Shawquat’s friend, an ’ood player himself. And now he remembered the ’ood player’s wife, with whom he had spoken before, and who had seemed sympathetic. He went to see her. She was preoccupied with her baby on her knee. Once again her husband was not there.

  The wife remembered him and went to back away, but he reminded her of Marie and her plight. Her curiosity re-aroused, the wife came forward again. But, she said, she couldn’t help. She knew nothing about it and her husband wouldn’t like it. This was the Geziret, she said.

  Owen said that he quite understood and would not press her; but he did wonder if she could help in a general way, seeing that the fate of a fellow woman was at stake.

  ‘Well …’ she said, looking at him doubtfully.

  After some thought, and swearing her to silence, he spoke of the girls’ plan. He told her about Ali Shawquat going round the Geziret, forlornly playing his nay and hoping to hear an echo.

  ‘She would hear the nay,’ she said, ‘and know that it was his nay.’

  ‘And would find a way of signalling back,’ said Owen.

  ‘How?’ said the wife doubtfully.

  ‘That is the question. We thought she might sing in response. She and Ali often used to sing together. Him playing the nay, she singing. There are songs, Ali said, that she would know, and he would play those.’

  ‘It would be as in the old stories,’ she breathed, her eyes shining.

  ‘As in the old stories,’ said Owen.

  ‘And she the lady in the tower!’

  ‘Pining for her lover,’ said Owen.

  ‘Yes!’ said the wife, far away. ‘Yes!’

  ‘All they need is a little help,’ said Owen.

  She shrank away.

  ‘I cannot!’ she said. ‘I cannot.’

  ‘A clue is all they ask,’ said Owen. ‘Which area should he play in? The nay player’s feet will walk all day, but the Geziret is large. Cannot you give him a hint where he should play?’

  ‘My husband would kill me,’ she whispered.

  ‘He will never know.’

  ‘Even my husband does not know where they keep her. After you came before, I asked him. But he said he did not know.’

  ‘The sound would travel through the streets. We do not need to know where exactly. But put us within reach of the woman, that she may hear, and within reach of the voice so that if she replies we will hear that too.’

  ‘I – I dare not.’

  ‘It is a woman that needs your help. What sort of woman is it that cannot help another woman when she is in need?’

  A broken sob came from behind the face veil.

  ‘Take me to the area. I do not need to know the place exactly.’

  ‘I do not know it exactly!’

  ‘But you know roughly where. Lead me there and stand. And then walk away, that is all I ask.’

  ‘They will hurt her.’

  ‘I shall move very quickly when the time comes. I would not ask, but I think this is our last chance. It depends on you. Cannot you help at least a little? As one woman for another?’

  She stood there wavering for some time and he thought he had lost her. But then she made up her mind.

  ‘Follow,’ she said. ‘But not too closely.’

  She started off along the narrow, dirty street, her baby in her arms. He waited and then followed, but on the other side of the street, and looking up at the buildings as if in search of a particular one. In his fez and a not particularly smart suit, he might have been a lowly official.

  It helped that the street was an old one, the woodwork was faded, the mud-brick walls crumbling, but the houses had character. The windows were meshrebiya and if you looked closely you saw that the lattice work was fine. He peered at it as he walked along, scrutinising the craftsmanship.

  He came to a small sebil, or fountain house, with delicate stone tracery and looping arabesques. Inscriptions were carved into
the dark masonry. The fountain chamber itself was lined with beautiful old blue tiles. He stopped for a moment to study it. From the kuttub, the small school, upstairs he could hear children’s voices. They had a clear, bell-like quality which reached out through the tops of the houses.

  The woman walked on, through ever-narrowing streets. The houses leant across overhead almost touching the ones on the opposite side of the street, giving shade from the sun and shelter from the heat. Some of the box-like window frames jutted out so far as almost to be built into the house opposite.

  The wife turned sharply into an opening so small that it could easily have been missed. The street itself would hardly have taken a donkey. In fact, there was a camel coming the other way towards them carrying a large load of berseem, or clover, for feeding the carriage animals. The load stretched out on both sides, scraping walls, until finally they stuck. The driver tried to get the camel to go back but camels don’t retreat easily and there was a lot of time lost before the manoeuvre succeeded. Just when it seemed that all was well, the camel came to an obstacle and stopped again.

  This time it was a beggar squatting in the street. He was blind and in his hand he held an ’ood, that lute-like musical instrument, which he was proposing to play. A small boy with a tin bowl stood beside him. The beggar struck up a tune and the small boy began to sing not very well.

  The camel driver cursed and there was some argument before the beggar rose reluctantly to his feet and moved away.

  The woman with her baby turned up an even narrower alley and then stopped. Owen came up behind her and almost bumped into her. As he bent near to her apologising she said softly: ‘Somewhere around here. I don’t know where.’

  She moved away and then said, even more quietly: ‘God go with you! And with my sister,’ she added, as she moved off.

  That part of the Geziret was a warren. It did not consist of streets or even alley ways but of passages, many of which led into one another. With a sinking heart he realised that he would never be able to place his men where he wanted. He had taken careful note of the way he had come but had no larger mental picture of the area, much less, of course, of where Marie actually was.