A Cold Touch of Ice

by Michael Pearce

  The boy was silent.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said another boy, ‘it is not right that Abou alone should be punished.’

  ‘He was not brought here to be punished,’ said Mahmoud.

  ‘No?’ said the boy, surprised.

  ‘He was brought here to answer a question.’

  ‘What question?’ said Abou.

  ‘Who was the man who gave you the paint?’

  ‘I—I cannot tell you,’ said Abou in a low voice.

  ‘Why cannot you tell me?’

  ‘I really cannot.’

  ‘What if I already know the answer?’

  ‘Even then,’ said the boy, almost inaudibly, ‘I cannot.’

  The other boys looked at each other.

  ‘Sir, he really cannot.’

  ‘Why not?’

  The boys looked at each other again but said nothing.

  ‘Is it because he is family?’

  Abou went pale.

  ‘Yes,’ said a voice from among the boys.

  ‘That is what I guessed,’ said Mahmoud.

  ‘It would be wrong for him to say, sir.’

  ‘You do not need to say, Abou,’ said Mahmoud, ‘now that I know who he is.’

  Abou looked miserable.

  ‘You have found out through me,’ he said, ‘and I am ashamed.’

  ‘Your whole family will be ashamed,’ said Mahmoud. ‘But that is something they will have to bear.’ He looked at the other boys. ‘And so will you,’ he said.

  The boys filed out in silence.

  ‘I asked that you should come,’ Mahmoud said to Owen, ‘so that you should be able to tell the Signora that justice has been done.’

  Owen nodded. In the Nahhasin shame was punishment enough.

  ‘How did you know the man?’ he asked.

  ‘It was when he said he couldn’t tell me. At first I thought it was, well, schoolboys’ honour? Is that what you say? But then, when he still refused to tell me, I began to think. And then when the other boys confirmed that he couldn’t tell me, I guessed that it was family. I know the family, of course. Everyone in the Nahhasin knows all the families. And as soon as I thought, I could see who it must be.’

  ***

  The warehouse was simmering in the heat. Little beads of tar bubbled in cracks in the wood of the doors and the silver grains of sand in the street outside winked so brightly in the sun that you had to look away.

  The porters were gathered in the darkness inside. It was the rest hour and they were lying down or else eating their midday meal. Some of them had brought food tied in a handkerchief: flat pancakes of bread, with an onion and some pickles.

  ‘I seek Suleiman,’ said Mahmoud.

  He was sitting apart from the others and had just fetched a bowl of water from the fountain house which he was drinking in impatient sips. Suddenly he threw the rest of the water over his head.

  ‘Suleiman,’ said Mahmoud, ‘I have words for you.’

  ‘Speak them then.’

  ‘Why did you give the paint?’

  The other porters went still.

  ‘What paint?’ said Suleiman.

  ‘The paint that was used to write the words on the door.’

  ‘I know of no paint. I know no words either,’ he said, and laughed uneasily.

  ‘I know you know no words and therefore did not write them. But you gave paint to the one who did.’

  Suleiman was silent for a moment. Then he said:

  ‘Has he spoken?’

  ‘He has not spoken of you.’

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘But he has confessed.’

  ‘But he has not spoken of me?’

  ‘He wouldn’t, would he? Not of his own family. But I know.’

  The silence was broken by the foreman.

  ‘Suleiman, is this true?’

  Suleiman raised his head and looked at him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said defiantly.

  ‘Then you may go.’

  Suleiman lumbered to his feet.

  ‘Not so fast,’ said Mahmoud. ‘I came to ask you a question and you have not answered it.’

  Suleiman looked puzzled.

  ‘The question?’

  ‘Why? Why did you give the paint?’

  ‘I give paint to whom I choose,’ said the porter truculently.

  ‘You gave because one of your family asked. That I can understand. But you gave it knowing that it would be used against your mistress. And that I do not understand.’

  ‘What is she to me?’

  ‘I know you to be a foolish man, Suleiman, and therefore I am not surprised that you gave the paint to a foolish child. But I had always taken you to be a man of honour.’

  ‘And so I am,’ said Suleiman angrily.

  ‘Why did you do this, then?’

  ‘Because she is here. And because she is a foreigner. They eat the country like locusts. And then they make war on us.’

  ‘She brings you bread. And it is not this country that they are making war on but another. And it is her countrymen who are making the war, not she.’

  ‘Suleiman, you know nothing about these things,’ said the foreman.

  ‘If it is not she who is making the war, then why was her man sending guns to the Italians?’

  ‘Do you know he was sending guns to the Italians?’

  ‘Everyone knows it.’

  ‘It is but a tale,’ said Mahmoud. ‘A tale made from the wind of the bazaars.’

  Suleiman shrugged.

  ‘Where did you get this tale?’

  ‘Here,’ said Suleiman. ‘I got it here.’

  ‘That is true, Mahmoud,’ said one of the porters diffidently. ‘We were talking about it. You remember, Ibrahim,’ he said, turning to his neighbour, ‘it was the day the Signor came down and asked about the Box.’

  ‘Box?’

  ‘Yes. The Mamur Zapt’s Box.’

  ‘What did he want to know about that for?’

  ‘I do not know. He had never asked about it before. That is why I remember it. That and the fact that it was the Signor. We had to shut up, you see, because we were talking about the quarrel. That is why I remember that it was that day.’

  ‘What was this quarrel?’

  ‘It was between the Signor and someone else. They were talking about the guns. That is how we know.’

  ‘One of you overheard them?’

  The men looked at each other.

  ‘Well, no. Not one of us, exactly.’

  ‘Who was it, then?’

  They looked at each other again.

  ‘Someone else.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Mahmoud patiently.

  There was a little silence.

  ‘We do not know, exactly. It was just that word was brought to us. We do not know by whom.’

  ‘Perhaps it was Amina,’ said one of the other men. ‘She’s always coming and going and she’s the one who usually brings us the news.’

  ‘Perhaps. Anyway, we were talking about it, and Abdul said it was but wind, but Ibrahim, here, said that there was no smoke without fire—’

  ‘And then the Signor came so we shut up.’

  ‘He said nothing about the quarrel?’

  ‘Oh no. He merely asked about the Box.’

  ‘And this was how you came to hear the tale, was it, Suleiman?’ said Mahmoud, turning back to the porter.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And so you decided to give the paint to your nephew?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He looked at Mahmoud.

  ‘What are you going to do? Take me?’

  ‘Not at this moment. But there may come a time when I shall come for you.’

  ‘You won’t find him here,’ sai
d the foreman. ‘Suleiman, I have had enough from you. Be gone, and do not come back.’

  ***

  They found Amina at the Ministerie de la Guerre; or, rather, she found them. Learning from Fahmy at the ice house what route Mustapha, the ice man, was following that day, they had set a course to intercept him at the Ministry. Owen knew an aide-de-camp who worked there and they parked themselves in his office, asking the post man to let them know when the ice man arrived. Instead, Amina arrived herself.

  ‘You wanted to see me,’ she said.

  ‘That is so, Amina,’ said Mahmoud courteously. ‘Would you please sit down?’

  She did; on the floor, from where her sharp eyes looked up at them.

  ‘Amina, there is a story going round the Nahhasin that the Signor knew of the guns in his warehouse.’

  ‘I have heard the story,’ said Amina cautiously.

  ‘And perhaps passed it on?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ said Amina. ‘What do you think I am? A gossip?’

  Mahmoud smiled.

  ‘Not a gossip, no. But perhaps one who carries the news of the world with them as they go on their rounds. Or so the porters think.’

  Amina didn’t know quite what to make of this.

  ‘Well,’ she said. And then again: ‘Well.’

  ‘They thought it might have been you who carried the story to them.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘On the day that the Signor came and asked about the Box.’

  ‘I heard him ask about the Box, certainly.’

  ‘And, perhaps, just before, had passed on the story?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Where did you hear the story, Amina?’

  ‘The story was in the air and it fell into my ear.’

  ‘But the story must have come from somewhere?’

  ‘Who knows where these things begin?’

  Mahmoud, used to such fencing, considered his next step.

  ‘I think you are a good newsteller, Amina,’ he said, ‘and tell only what is fresh and what interests. I think you told the porters that day, and that therefore the news was new. I think too, then, that you might remember where you heard it.’

  There was a little silence. Then Amina said: ‘No, I don’t think I do.’

  ‘No?’

  Mahmoud smiled, and waited.

  ‘Perhaps it was the fakir,’ said Amina after a while, reluctantly.

  ‘Fakir?’

  ‘The boss-eyed one.’

  ‘I do not know the fakir.’

  ‘You might not,’ said Amina. ‘He comes and goes.’

  ‘Tell me more about this fakir.’

  ‘When he is in the Nahhasin, he sleeps at the door of the warehouse. The wood is warm to his back and he sleeps well. He was sleeping there one night and he heard voices inside the warehouse. There were two and they were arguing. One said: “You shouldn’t have done it!” And then the other said: “But I had asked you!” And the first came back: “But you didn’t tell me it would be guns!” And the other said: “Some things it is best not to know.” The first speaker then became angry and said: “It was a trick that you played on me.” But then they moved away and the fakir heard no more.’

  ‘But what is the Signor to do with this?’

  ‘The first voice was his.’

  ‘And the second?’

  ‘The fakir did not know.’

  They walked down with Amina to the courtyard, where Mustapha was waiting with his donkey, having delivered his ice.

  ‘Effendi,’ he said to Owen, ‘if she has done aught amiss, let me be the one to beat her.’

  ‘Stay your blows. She has done nothing amiss. Except—’ said Mahmoud, remembering, ‘Amina, I want to have a word with you.’ He led her aside. ‘Amina, I will not have you spitting at foreigners. It is discourteous.’

  ‘I do not—’ began Amina furiously.

  ‘The woman I was with,’ said Owen. ‘The tall, fair one.’

  ‘I was not spitting because she was a foreigner. I was spitting because—’

  She stopped.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said to Owen, ‘I did not spit at you.’ He had been uncomfortably aware that he had been receiving hospitality but not returning it. Even Zeinab had done better. She had at least entertained Aisha at her appartement. But the thought of entertaining anyone in his appartement quite unnerved Owen. He reckoned to take all his meals out. The coffee houses and restaurants were as much his home as his appartement was; indeed, far more, since that was where he met his friends and did his reading.

  He decided, therefore, to invite Mahmoud and Aisha out for a meal; and then it was only a question of checking that Zeinab was willing, and calling in at the restaurant.

  The restaurant he had chosen was a Lebanese one in the Ismailiya, dark, cool and quiet, the sort of place, with its low tables, its near-Arab food, and its seclusion in which he hoped Aisha would feel at ease. This would be the first time that she had ever dined out in public.

  When he and Zeinab arrived, Mahmoud and Aisha were already there, Mahmoud in his serious dark suit, Aisha in a dark, European-style dress and a dark, but European, veil. Zeinab was veiled, too, but à la Parisienne, with a touch of flamboyance and rather more than a touch of provocation; seemly, however, by the standards of the Cairo rich. With Owen’s dark, Welsh colouring, they could easily have passed for a rich Lebanese foursome out for the evening: rich, because this was the sort of thing that only the confident, emancipated rich would do.

  Aisha was liking it, he could see. She began to blossom, leaning forward to join unself-consciously in the conversation, her dark, rather pretty eyes absorbing everything.

  Mahmoud, too, began to expand. He talked about his youthful university days, something which seemed to interest Zeinab particularly, and which rather surprised Owen, for he had never supposed that Mahmoud had had a youth. It was a new Mahmoud that he was seeing.

  And suddenly he realized what it was. It was the marriage. They were both very happy. Owen couldn’t work it out. An arranged marriage, arranged between two people who didn’t know each other, arranged by someone else—and yet it appeared to be successful!

  Whereas he and Zeinab; Zeinab sitting there so unusually silently—

  He just couldn’t work it out.

  ***

  The next day Kitchener forced the Khedive to withdraw his offer to sell the railway; whereupon the Khedive departed in high dudgeon for one of his estates on the Mediterranean coast. Not before making clear his fury at the Consul-General’s action, however. On the following day the newspapers were full of the ‘dreadful insult’ to Egypt’s ruler; an insult which was also, as Al-Liwa, the most popular, as well as the most Nationalist, of the Arabic newspapers, pointed out, one to the Egyptian people.

  The Egyptian people were not, however, despite Owen’s prediction, up in arms. This was because the Sirdar had got there first. He had filled the streets with British soldiers, and for the next few days they were much in evidence. The crowning piece of his show of force was a massive parade in Abdin Square, just in front of the Palace.

  His original intention had been to announce that it was in honour of the Khedive’s birthday, which was, admittedly, some way off, but would do as well as anything. When the Khedive, apoplectic with rage, declined to attend, he had at first altered it to the Queen’s birthday, trusting that not too many people would realize that Victoria had died some years before. Persuaded by Paul that, even so, this was not a good occasion on which to celebrate England’s royalty, he had then, in desperation, claimed that it was the anniversary of the Aldershot Review, an announcement which left everyone, both British and Egyptian, mystified. The Egyptians, however, saw from the name that it was something to do with shooting, so took, on the whole, the right message.

  And so there
they were, drawn up in the square, in full dress: the Dragoons in their scarlet, the Borderers in their tartan, the Horse Artillery in their gold-laced jackets. And there beside them, although in prudently smaller numbers, representing the Egyptian Army, were the Camel Corps with their cocks’ plumes and the Sudan Infantry with their crimson tarbooshes. Trudi, thought Owen, would have loved it.

  Around the square, restraining the over-enthusiastic onlookers, or, depending on your point of view, stopping them from throwing stones, was a thin line of policemen. There was, in fact, a crowd there to restrain, come partly because of the Cairene inassuageable thirst for entertainment, partly because, like the ice man and his donkey, they had been stopped during passage of the square in the ordinary pursuit of their business. Owen saw Mustapha sitting resignedly on the ground on the shady side of his donkey.

  Amina at first he could not see, but then he caught sight of her on the very edge of the crowd, wormed through to the front and peering, rapt, at the soldiers opposite.

  Normally on such occasions there would be dignitaries present, sitting in armchairs arranged in front of the Palace railings. Today, of course, with the Khedive’s boycott of the event, there were no Egyptians and it hadn’t seemed worth setting aside special chairs for the few Europeans. Instead, seating had been subsumed into the general arrangements for the military wives and families, consisting of a separate roped-off enclosure to one side.

  The occasion was, however, to be graced by the attendance of the Consul-General himself, and soon Kitchener appeared, the tall figure towering above those of his attendants. He stood for a moment reviewing the formations in general and then began to walk along the lines, stopping for a word or two here and there, not always with British soldiers but sometimes with Sudanese or Egyptians whom he recognized from his time in the Sudan.

  This was a moment when Owen always felt tense, because, with Kitchener standing still, he presented a better target to anyone who wanted to take a potshot at him. Of course, the crowd was kept back sufficiently far as to make such an attempt unlikely to succeed. All the same, he scanned the mass of people anxiously.

  Soon, however, Kitchener was done. He exchanged salutes, took one last look around, and climbed into his carriage. His mounted escort closed round him and in a moment he was gone.

  The parade came to an end. The various detachments began to move off. The Camel Corps, always popular, made a long wheel-round close to the crowd. Behind them the Egyptian Artillery, also a favourite, was harnessing up its guns and getting ready to follow them.