The Donkey-Vous

by Michael Pearce

  “Vous êtes capitaine, Monsieur?”

  “Oui, Madame.”

  “Du militaire?”

  “Oui, Madame. I was in the Indian Army before coming to Egypt.”

  “Vous avez tué?”

  Owen was taken aback. Had he killed? Well, yes, he had, but it was not something he liked to be asked quite so definitely.

  “Oui, Madame. Je le regrette.”

  “We all regret it,” replied the old lady, “but sometimes it is necessary.”

  She completed her inspection.

  “C’est un brave homme!” she announced to the Chargé.

  “Of course!” said the Chargé enthusiastically.

  “He has been tried in action,” said Madame Moulin. “That is what makes a man. Not sitting about in offices.”

  “Of course!” agreed the Chargé, slightly less enthusiastically this time.

  “It is something I am always telling Monsieur le Président. My cousin’s husband, you know. ‘Gaston,’ I say: ‘what has happened to our young men? All they think about is drinking wine and chasing women and sitting about in offices.’”

  “And what does Monsieur le Président reply?” asked Owen.

  “‘Monique,’ he says: ‘young men have always drunk wine and chased women.’ ‘But not sat about in offices!’ I say. We are becoming,” said Madame Moulin triumphantly, “a race of degenerates.”

  “Oh là là!” said the Chargé, and clicked his tongue reprovingly.

  “A nation of degenerates,” Madame Moulin repeated with emphasis, looking fiercely in his direction.

  Owen, who got along well with the Chargé, despite present difficulties, tried to rescue him.

  “But, Madame,” he said, “we serve our country in different ways. The skills the diplomat needs are not those of the soldier.”

  “I am not talking of skills,” said the old lady dismissively. “I am talking of character.”

  There was a little silence after that. It was Madame Moulin herself who broke it.

  “And what, precisely, are the skills which you yourself bring to this sad affair, Monsieur le Capitaine? Those of a soldier?”

  “Certainly not. Those days are long behind me.”

  “Then…?”

  It was the sort of question which the French—and the Egyptians—were always asking and one which Owen found it very difficult to answer. Both countries had a tradition of professionalism which made it hard for them to see the obvious advantages of English amateurism. Owen decided to shift the question slightly.

  “I am assisting Mr. El Zaki,” he said. Seeing from Madame Moulin’s expression that this needed amplifying, he added, “I look after the political side.”

  “Ah? So this has a political side?”

  “No, no. Not necessarily. It’s just that it may have. It could possibly have. It is just a precaution. My role is very minor. Mr. El Zaki—”

  Madame Moulin took no notice.

  “Moulin dabbles too much in politics,” she said darkly. “These big contracts! I have told him time and again that one day he would burn his fingers. Perhaps this is the day.”

  “We have no reason to think—”

  “Moulin is a fool. An old fool, too, and there’s none worse. How many times have I told him to stop gadding around and to stay at home and look after his own business! That could do with some attention, I can tell you! He’s let it go while he’s been chasing around at the beck and call of all those big firms. On yes, they give him a commission, and a big one too, but is it worth it? That’s what I ask him. Gadding around like this all over the world, that’s the short way to finding yourself in a wooden box, I tell him. At his age! And with his heart!”

  “That is something that concerns us, Madame,” said Mahmoud. “As far as we know, he is being well treated, but of course, he won’t be taking his medication.”

  “He doesn’t anyway,” said the old lady. “He’s too pigheaded to take his pills. He says he forgets them but I know differently. He forgets them deliberately. Those Provençal people are all the same. They don’t trust anyone, not even their own doctors. They won’t poison you, I tell him. I’m the one you’ve got to worry about. And I will, too, one of these days, if I catch you playing around with any more of those fancy women. Did you hear that?” she asked Mahmoud.

  “No,” said Mahmoud.

  She laughed heartily.

  “That’s the right answer,” she said. “You could have been one of our policemen at home. They know what to hear and what not to hear.”

  She suddenly changed tack.

  “So it’s just a question of money, is it?”

  “Yes,” said the Chargé.

  “Well, we’ve got plenty of that. Mind you, I don’t believe in giving in to them, not as a general rule, but it’s a bit different when it’s your own, isn’t it? I don’t expect you agree with me, though, do you?” she said, looking at Mahmoud.

  “No.”

  She sighed. “Well, you’re right, I suppose. We could do with more men like you. All the same—”

  She seemed to be thinking.

  “I don’t suppose you’re getting anywhere, are you?” she asked Mahmoud. “No? Well, you wouldn’t be, and at least you’re man enough to say so. If you were, you see, I might be willing to wait, though it’d be hard on poor Moulin. At his age, too—”

  “And in the heat,” said the Chargé.

  “Yes, in the heat.” She shook her head regretfully. “No, it won’t do. I’ll have to pay. As I said, we’ve got money enough.”

  She suddenly looked sharply at Mahmoud.

  “How did they know we’ve got money? What made them pick on poor Moulin?”

  “Anyone who stays at Shepheard’s—” began Mahmoud.

  She brushed his words aside impatiently.

  “Someone must have told them,” she said. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have known. He doesn’t show his money around, he’s too much of an old peasant for that. Someone must have told them. And I know who. Yes,” she said, her lips tightening, “I know who.”

  “Who, Madame?”

  “That nephew of his. That degenerate.”

  “But—”

  “Berthelot,” she said.

  Chapter Six

  A new party of tourists had arrived at the hotel; and as Mahmoud and Owen came down the steps a small group of them were being introduced by their dragoman to the donkey-boys.

  “This Daouad, this Ali,” said the dragoman, selecting two of them not quite at random since Ali was the biggest of the donkey-boys and Daouad the richest.

  “Fine donkeys,” said Daouad. “You want ride?”

  They were fine donkeys. There were little white ones with gay blue and silver necklaces and saddles of red brocade. These were for women and children. And there were big Assiut donkeys for the men. These stood tall as ponies, with their fore-feet on the pavement, brushing away the flies with independent motions of their enormous ears, their tails bright with henna. A triangular silver charm containing a verse from the Koran hung below their throats and somewhere about them (as on all the cab-horses) was a blue bead to keep off the evil eye. Those for hire bore a number plate in English and Arabic—“Donkey No. 153”—on their saddle pommel.

  The dragoman performed one of his party tricks. He borrowed a cigar from one of the tourists and puffed cigar smoke up the nostrils of one of the donkeys. The creature closed its eyes and laid its head back in voluptuous ecstasy.

  “Shame on you, Osman!” said another dragoman who was passing at that moment.

  “And shame on you, Abdul Hafiz!” Osman retorted spiritedly.

  Only the strictest Moslems objected to smoking and drago-mans were not usually among the strictest Moslems. The donkey-boys, who had developed the trick in the first place, stood smiling broadly.

&nbs
p; The tourists giggled. Osman, encouraged, or possibly provoked by Abdul Hafiz, went a step further. He stuck the cigar in the donkey’s mouth.

  “Why, Mum, it’s just like Daddy!” said a small boy and dodged the clip on the ear his father gave him.

  The dragoman offered the cigar back to its owner. The offer spurned, as he had hoped, he put out the cigar and stuffed it into the folds of his gown. The party moved off.

  The donkey-boys looked up at Owen and Mahmoud as they passed.

  “We’ve fallen out of favor,” they said. “You don’t come to see us these days.”

  Owen and Mahmoud didn’t even need to look at each other. With one accord they dropped on to their haunches beside the donkey-boys.

  “It’s being so busy,” said Mahmoud.

  “Yes,” said the donkey-boys, “we’ve watched you.”

  They passed them two small enamel cups and one of the boys refilled the pot.

  “Let it stand for a bit,” said Daouad, who seemed to be their natural leader, if any group so anarchic could be said to have a leader.

  “You’re not getting very far, are you?” one of the other donkey-boys said to Mahmoud.

  Mahmoud did not reply, just smiled.

  “These things take a long time,” said Ali, who as well as being big was rather indolent.

  “Are they going to pay?” asked Daouad.

  “They might,” said Mahmoud, “but that wouldn’t mean the end of it for us.”

  “You’d go on, would you? What’s the point? It would all be over and done with.”

  “Until the next one.”

  “Yes,” said Daouad, “there’s always that.”

  “They’ll have made a nice bit of money,” said another of the donkey-boys. “One hundred thousand piastres! That’s not to be sneezed at!”

  As always, the donkey-boys’ information was accurate. In Cairo it was never possible to keep anything secret for long.

  “Yes,” said Daouad thoughtfully. “Do that once or twice and it would set you up for life.”

  “Get caught,” said Mahmoud, “and you’d be set up for life all right.”

  They all laughed.

  “Don’t worry,” they said. “The Mamur Zapt has got us frightened.”

  Owen knew he was being mocked; but laughed with them. Almost shamefacedly they poured him some tea. He was a guest and under the strong law of hospitality, while a little teasing was allowable, offence should not be given.

  “You haven’t found him yet, then.”

  “No,” said Mahmoud, “although I’ve been all along the Wagh el Birket. Slowly.”

  They roared with laughter.

  “I’ll bet you saw some other interesting things, though.”

  “But not him. Anyway,” said Mahmoud, “for all you say, that’s not the sort of place where one would be likely to find him. He’s too old.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “He wasn’t as old as that to start with. He just got like that through going there.”

  “It takes some people that way. Look at Daouad!”

  “I don’t go to the Wagh el Birket!” said Daouad indignantly.

  “Not now he’s married.”

  “I’m not married!” protested Daouad.

  “Oh? I thought you’d been to a wedding recently?”

  The donkey-boys doubled up with laughter. It was obviously some inside joke. They wouldn’t leave it alone and Daouad became angrier and angrier. Eventually Mahmoud was able to steer the conversation on to another subject. Another group of tourists came down the steps and Owen and Mahmoud, after the traditionally profuse Arabic thanks, left the donkey-boys to get on with their business.

  It was still very hot and really too early to go on expeditions but the tourists were newcomers and had not yet discovered this and the dragomans, having once secured their customers, were certainly not going to tell them.

  “They might suggest it later,” Mahmoud said, “when they’ve become their regular dragoman and make definite appointments. Even then, though, they’re not allowed into the hotel unless they’re a properly accredited hotel dragoman. That’s where the hotel dragomans have an advantage. Mind you, they’re not allowed to pester the guests. There’s a corridor behind Reception—it leads out into a little backyard behind the kitchens—and they have to stay in that. When their party arrives, if they’ve made an appointment, or if somebody comes along who looks as if they might want a dragoman, the staff on Reception give the dragomans a signal. If it’s not an appointment they have to take it turns. The first in the line comes forward.”

  Mahmoud had been doing some research on the hotel dragomans. There were seven of them, all properly licensed by the police. “I thought we might go along afterwards,” he said, “and look at their files.”

  On the day that Moulin disappeared there were only five of them on the premises, the other two having gone with parties to the Pyramids. Of the five, two who had appointments for later had spent the afternoon asleep in the backyard (confirmed by various members of the kitchen staff who had also gone out there to sleep where it was cooler), one had gone on an errand, and only two had been in the corridor at about the time in question. They had stayed in the corridor, according to their own account and confirmed, though not confidently, by Reception, until about half past four, when the first of them, Osman, the smoke-puffing one, had been summoned to take a party off to the bazaars. The second, Selim, had been called for about ten minutes later.

  “But by then we’re not really interested,” said Mahmoud. “It’s really from about four o’clock to twenty past four that we’re concerned with.”

  “Presumably you’ve asked those two in the corridor and they’ve denied ever having gone out on to the terrace?”

  “Oh yes. May God strike them dead, etc. They’d have to deny it because the hotel is very strict on the point. They’ve got to stay in the corridor.”

  “Is it possible to get from the corridor to the terrace?”

  “Oh yes. It’s only a few steps and if the Reception staff were busy…Still, there would be a risk.”

  “But one of them couldn’t have gone out without the other knowing.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So they’d both have to be in it together.”

  “The trouble with the whole affair,” said Mahmoud, “is that everyone is in it all together.”

  Mahmoud being Mahmoud, he had not taken anything for granted but had checked stories whenever he could. The dragoman who said he’d gone on an errand, Abdul Hafiz, had indeed gone on an errand. He had gone to collect a parcel for one of the guests from one of the shops in the bazaar, had definitely done so and had handed it in to Reception soon after four-thirty. No doubt on that point at least, for Abdul Hafiz had wanted to give it directly into the hands of the guests (because of the bakhsheesh) and had been very reluctant merely to deposit it at Reception. It was something that all participants remembered and had clearly made an impression on all of them.

  Likewise the two dragomans who had been with parties to the Pyramids had definitely been there and for the whole day too. It would have been impossible for them to have slipped back to the hotel at any point.

  And the two dragomans sleeping in the backyard appeared genuinely to have been sleeping.

  “Though, of course,” said Mahmoud, “there is no real precision about times.”

  “And the yard is just at the other end of the corridor,” Owen pointed out. “They could have slipped along it easily enough.”

  “Yes. Though there would have been a risk. They could easily have been seen.”

  “That applies to them all.”

  “Yes.”

  It applied particularly on the terrace where if a dragoman had appeared, as Colthorpe Hartley reported, he must have been seen—indeed, was seen—by Colt
horpe Hartley. Mahmoud had tried repeatedly to see if Colthorpe Hartley could identify the dragoman. That, in fact, had been part of the point of the ill-fated reconstruction. However, that attempt, like the others, had failed. Faced with the hotel dragomans, Colthorpe Hartley was barely able to tell them apart. His mind, he assured Mahmoud—and this Mahmoud could readily accept—went blank, “absolutely blank, old boy.” He was, however, quite positive that he had seen “one of those fellows” and Mahmoud was inclined to believe him.

  “It fits in with what the snake charmer told us,” he said. “Someone from above the steps.”

  “That could apply to a waiter.”

  “But Colthorpe Hartley saw a dragoman.”

  Naturally enough Mahmoud had tried to find corroboration for Colthorpe Hartley’s account. That, too, had been part of the point of the reconstruction. He had wanted to see if any of the street-vendors remembered the dragoman. His intention had been thwarted by the general rush of all the vendors to that end of the terrace on the day of the reconstruction, which had resulted in a complete mix-up of regulars and general sightseers. He had tried again on the following day when conditions were normal but had not achieved quite the clarification he had desired.

  “No one saw a dragoman?”

  “Oh yes, everyone saw a dragoman. But they all saw different dragomans!”

  Most of the vendors had testified in detail as to the appearance of the dragoman. The flower-seller had described with considerable accuracy one of the dragomans who had been incontrovertibly at the Pyramids on the day in question. The sweetmeat-seller had given a vivid picture of one of the dragomans asleep in the backyard. Four witnesses described with lurid detail the dragoman who had acted the part in Mahmoud’s reconstruction. And the filthy-postcard-seller described a sinister figure with a hunched back and a wall eye and the Fang of the Wolf and—until Mahmoud shut him up.

  Mahmoud, ever-hopeful, was still hopeful, though. That was part of the purpose of their stroll across the street. He wanted to reconstruct the image of Moulin’s disappearance again in his own mind, to note the vendors actually present, to see if there was anyone he had missed out. He had, moreover, not given up hope of assisting Colthorpe Hartley’s mind to some merciful clarity of vision and meant to try him again.