A Cold Touch of Ice

by Michael Pearce

  ‘Do what I say and you will not see me again.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Shukri. ‘You want something? But in what, then, does this act of friendship consist?’

  ‘An early warning,’ said Owen, ‘that it is time for you to look for another job.’

  ‘That does not seem very friendly.’

  ‘Oh, but it is. For if it were not for the friendship I bear you, Shukri, you would join the others of your society in the caracol.’

  ‘It is not for friendship that you do this but because you want something.’

  ‘And in return for what I want I give a reward.’

  ‘All right,’ said Shukri resignedly. ‘Tell me.’

  ***

  ‘I think I have found,’ said Mahmoud, ‘the man who went to see the Signor the night before he was killed. He went openly and there were those who saw him. But because he went openly, and because they were used to seeing him, they did not remark on it.’ He looked at Owen. ‘I must say, his identity surprised me. Although perhaps it should not. Nevertheless, because it does, I feel that in fairness I must make one more check. There is one more person who I must ask.’

  ‘The name of that person?’

  ‘Abdul, the foreman at the warehouse. But I shall tell you no more. For the moment.’

  Owen laughed.

  ‘You are of the Nahhasin too, Mahmoud,’ he said, laying his hand affectionately on Mahmoud’s arm for an instant, ‘and you show it even in this.’

  ***

  The fountain house at the end of the street in which the Morellis’ warehouse lay was a beautiful structure with a delicately latticed upper storey. Doves rested in the recesses and you would sometimes see them tumbling out. In this heat, though, they preferred to remain inside, and the only sign of their occupation was a continuous low purring like the engine of one of these superior new motor cars that you were beginning to see in the streets of Cairo. That, and the fact that a pigeon would sometimes drop down to sip the water spilled by the fountains and to eat the grains which Amina had thoughtfully left for them on the stone lip of the basin.

  Where the sun had been on it, the stone was warm to the touch, but the water from the fountain was delightfully fresh and cool, and Owen took the small iron cup attached to the basin by a chain and splashed it over his face. Along the street he saw Shukri coming.

  He bent over the basin again and a moment later Shukri bent beside him.

  ‘You asked the reason,’ he said, ‘why they had told me once more not to call at the Signora’s. It is as before.’

  ‘They have been asked? By the same people as before?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That was the easy bit,’ said Owen. ‘Did you find out the rest?’

  ‘It is not easy, Effendi. But I did.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘Effendi, I must not go on asking questions. For they are beginning to look at me strangely. Soon they will have me followed.’

  ‘It is for that reason that we meet like this. And we need not meet again.’

  ‘Very well, then. Effendi, what I have learned is this: it is as before. Those who have asked us, do it on behalf of another. The same one as before. However, Effendi, there is, this time, this difference: that whereas before, those who asked us did not care greatly, this time they do.’

  ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘Effendi, if the words are dark, it is because the business is dark. I report but a feeling, and what is a feeling?’

  ‘But it is a feeling felt by those who have spoken to you, and who are in a position to know?’

  ‘That is so, Effendi. The way it was put to me was thus: last time, those who asked did not care greatly about the outcome. If it succeeded, good; if not, well, little was lost. This time they want it to succeed.’

  ‘Whatever “it” might be.’

  ‘That I do not know, Effendi. Nor did I think it was wise to ask.’

  ‘It does not matter.’

  ‘Effendi, it is little that I have to report,’ said Shukri apologetically.

  ‘It is enough,’ said Owen.

  ***

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Georgiades.

  ‘It means,’ said Owen, ‘that the big boys are thinking of coming in.’

  Another of the fruits, he thought, of Kitchener’s ill-judged action.

  ‘Unless, of course, this example discourages them.’

  ***

  The caravan was late in arriving. It had been held up crossing the river. The iron of the Kasr-al-Nil Bridge had expanded so much in the heat that the bridge had refused to open and the traffic over all the bridges had been affected in consequence. The delay seemed to have been the last straw for the drivers, if not for the camels, for two of the drivers were lying semi-comatose on their camels’ backs.

  The journey this time had been unusually gruelling. The Bisharin would normally have regarded such a short, easy trip as a mere saunter, but the heat this time had turned even a saunter into a major effort of endurance. Owen suspected that they had been too casual and had omitted to supply themselves with sufficient drinking water, for several of them were looking dehydrated.

  They drew up wearily in front of the warehouse. The foreman rushed out.

  ‘Welcome, Mohammed! You have had a good journey?’ His eyes took in the condition of the party. ‘No, you have not.’

  ‘We have not,’ said the caravan leader, touching his camel on the head with his riding stick. The camel knelt.

  ‘Some water, Mohammed?’

  ‘First, the camels,’ said Mohammed Guri. His eye travelled back along the caravan and stopped at the two slumped drivers. ‘No,’ he said, ‘first, them. They’re young,’ he explained apologetically to the foreman. ‘It’s their first time. Although I must say I don’t know what’s got into the young these days. A mere step like this!’

  ‘Ah, well, Mohammed, you’ve got to make allowances.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have done in my father’s time, I can tell you. If we’d fallen off, he’d just have let us lie there.’

  ‘Ah, well, things were a bit different then.’

  ‘They were. Still, we’d better do something for them, I suppose. Get them into the shade! No, wait a minute, take them to the ice house. They’ll do better there.’

  Two of the other drivers turned the camels and led them off up the street, the two incapacitated men still slumped forward motionless over the camels’ necks.

  The caravan leader made a sign and the other drivers got their camels to kneel down.

  ‘We’d better get them unloaded,’ he said. ‘If we water them first we’d have endless trouble.’

  ‘Right, Mohammed!’

  The porters came out of the warehouse and began to carry the loads inside. The drivers stood beside their camels to see they gave no trouble. Camels were always quarrelsome and occasionally they took a bite at a person unloading them, especially if they thought he didn’t know much about camels.

  When the unloading was finished, the caravan leader remounted and led the camels off to the river. First, the camels; then the men. That was the rule of the desert.

  ***

  Owen had men watching the warehouse. They watched it day and night but no one attempted to break in. On the evening of the third day, after the porters had gone home, Owen borrowed the key from the Signora and went in himself. He and Georgiades combed through every bale and then went through them again; but the guns weren’t there.

  Chapter Sixteen

  With the doors closed, the temperature had risen, even though outside it was dark.

  Georgiades wiped his face.

  ‘I saw them put it in!’ he protested.

  ‘We’ve had people watching all the time. No one could have got in!’

  Georgiades sat down on a bale.

 
‘Maybe they just didn’t get there, then.’

  Owen couldn’t believe it. He had been so sure. They had even eaten bread together!

  ‘I need to talk to Mohammed Guri,’ he said.

  ‘He’ll be on his way back to Assuan by now,’ said Georgiades.

  ‘I still need to talk to him.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him,’ said Georgiades bitterly. ‘I’ll even go back to Assuan to do it.’

  Owen sat thinking. He had been so sure of Mohammed Guri. Tricky, the man might be, and honest only within limits, but within those limits you could surely rely on him, if for no other reason than that you had to be able to rely on a caravan leader. He had said he would deliver, and surely, surely—But tricky. Could there be some kind of trick here? Suppose, for some reason, he didn’t want to go all the way with Owen; suppose, yes, that even he was not immune to the burst of anger that had run through Egypt because of Kitchener’s action; suppose…?

  He ran through the whole thing in his mind.

  Then he stopped. Maybe, in a sense, in his own way, up to a point, the caravan leader had delivered.

  ‘Those camels,’ he said, ‘the ones that were led off to the ice house: did they ever come back again?’

  ‘Yes. They dropped the two men off and then the other drivers brought them back.’

  ‘But they went to the ice house first.’

  ***

  There was a lamp still on in the ice house. Fahmy himself came to the door. He looked at them in surprise.

  ‘You were lucky to catch me,’ he said. ‘I’ve been working late and was just on my way to the coffee house. How can I help you?’

  ‘We are looking for something.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Guns.’

  Fahmy seemed stunned for a moment. Then he stepped aside.

  ‘May God be my strength,’ he said quietly.

  They found the guns in an unused corner of the ice house.

  ***

  Even though it was late, a small crowd had gathered by the time it came to take Fahmy away. The ice men, who normally slept outside in the street beside their donkeys, stood in shock. Amina was openly weeping.

  From all parts of the Nahhasin people came running. The crowd outside the ice house grew every second.

  As Fahmy appeared, escorted by two policemen, there were cries of anger.

  ‘Why are you taking an innocent man?’ someone called out, and for a moment it looked as if the situation might turn ugly.

  It was eased by Fahmy himself.

  ‘Friends, I am not innocent,’ he had said, looking straight before him. ‘Take me away.’

  ‘What are they going to do with him?’ cried Amina, distraught.

  ‘Take him before the Kadi,’ said Selim.

  ‘He has done no wrong!’ she said angrily.

  ‘That will be for the Kadi to decide.’

  Owen appeared at that moment.

  ‘You stupid asshole!’ cried Amina.

  ‘Now listen,’ said Selim, shocked, ‘me you can call an asshole because I’m not a sergeant yet. But you don’t call the Mamur Zapt an asshole!’

  ‘I call anyone I like an asshole,’ said Amina defiantly.

  ‘That is because you are an ignorant slut,’ said Selim. ‘If you knew anything about the world, you would know that you don’t call Mamur Zapts assholes. Or anyone else that big. Because they’re not like me. I would just put you across my knee. But they would cut you in half with a curbash. You don’t cheek the great, you silly bitch. Though it’s all right to cheek people lower down.’

  ‘I cheek who I like,’ muttered Amina.

  ‘She cheeks who she likes,’ said Suleiman.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Amina.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Selim automatically. Then he looked at Suleiman.

  ‘Hello, my little petal,’ he said in surprise. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I work here,’ said Suleiman defiantly.

  ‘I thought you worked for the Signora?’

  ‘I did,’ said Suleiman.

  Selim laughed.

  ‘And she threw you out? Very wise of her!’

  ‘It was that bastard Abdul who threw me out,’ said Suleiman.

  ‘It just goes to show where the brains are round here,’ observed Selim. He looked at Suleiman critically and then tapped the porter on the head. ‘Not in here, that’s obvious.’

  Suleiman struck his hand away angrily.

  ‘So how come you’re here?’ asked Selim.

  ‘Fahmy took pity on me.’

  ‘That’s more than you deserved,’ said Selim.

  Surprisingly, Suleiman agreed.

  ‘It is more than I deserve,’ he said. ‘But Fahmy is a good man.’

  ‘Not that good,’ said Selim, ‘or he wouldn’t be where he is now.’

  ‘You stupid bastard!’ said Amina angrily.

  ‘Yes, you stupid bastard!’ said Suleiman.

  ‘Little flower,’ said Selim, tapping Suleiman on the chest, ‘if you open your mouth just once again, I’ll close it for you for a long time.’

  Suleiman squared up angrily. Amina pushed him away, then ran off.

  Suleiman’s eyes followed her hungrily.

  ‘I wouldn’t waste your time,’ said Selim. ‘She doesn’t give a toss for you. What she’s keen on is a pair of shiny officer’s boots.’

  Someone pulled Suleiman away hastily.

  ***

  The following evening Owen got the message he had been waiting for. It came from Mahmoud and asked him to come to his house as a matter of urgency. When he entered the upstairs room he found several familiar faces: Mahmoud’s, of course, and that of his father-in-law, Ibrahim Buktari, but also those of others of Fahmy’s friends, including Abd al Jawad and Hamdan.

  There was an awkward silence for a moment and then Ibrahim Buktari came across the room and pressed Owen’s hand in both of his.

  ‘You do us honour,’ he said.

  ‘I bring you pain,’ said Owen.

  Ibrahim Buktari nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you bring us pain. However—’

  He led Owen over to a divan, where Hamdan made space for him.

  Then, however, there was another silence.

  Owen broke it.

  ‘You wish, no doubt, to ask for clemency,’ he said. ‘But there is no need. I give it without your asking.’

  ‘We ask it for a friend.’

  ‘I know; and know, too, that friendship counts for much in the Nahhasin.’ He paused. ‘I, too, counted Fahmy as a friend.’

  Hamdan looked at him quickly.

  ‘You did?’ he said.

  ‘And do. But even though he is a friend, I must do justly.’

  Abd al Jawad sighed.

  ‘That,’ he said, ‘is precisely the point.’

  ‘I know he would not have used the guns himself. But he held them for those who would.’

  ‘He was asked,’ said Hamdan quietly, ‘by someone he could not refuse.’

  ‘Why couldn’t he refuse them?’

  Hamdan hesitated. The others nodded encouragement.

  ‘He was bound,’ said Hamdan, after a moment. ‘They were of his blood.’

  ‘It was someone from his own family?’

  They exchanged glances and then nodded; all of them.

  ‘His nephew,’ said Ibrahim Buktari. ‘That I should be the one to say it!’

  ‘Kamal?’

  Ibrahim nodded.

  ‘If it is any consolation,’ said Owen, ‘you tell me nothing that I do not already know.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have asked him!’ said Hamdan in anguish.

  ‘It was wrong of him,’ said Abd al Jawad, ‘for he knew his uncle could not refuse.’

&n
bsp; ‘And doubly wrong,’ said Ibrahim Buktari, ‘to let his uncle go to prison while he stayed silent.’

  ‘We waited,’ said Hamdan.

  ‘But he did not come forward,’ said Ibrahim Buktari.

  ‘And so in the end,’ said Abd al Jawad, ‘we felt we had to speak.’

  ‘The blood-tie bound Fahmy,’ Hamdan explained, ‘but it does not bind us.’

  ‘Friendship is much,’ said Abd al Jawad.

  ‘But justice is more,’ said Hamdan.

  ***

  There was a timid tap on the door and Aisha came into the room, eyes lowered.

  ‘Mahmoud,’ she said, ‘someone asks to see you.’

  ‘Could you tell them,’ said Mahmoud, ‘that I have serious business, and ask them to wait?’

  ‘I think they have come,’ said Aisha, ‘about that serious business.’

  Mahmoud rose and left the room.

  ‘Who is it, Aisha?’ asked Ibrahim Buktari.

  ‘The Signora,’ said Aisha.

  ***

  Even the Signora found it uncomfortable to come, as a woman, into a room full of men. She held a veil across her face and kept her eyes lowered.

  The men rose to their feet.

  ‘Signora—’

  ‘I ask you to forgive me for interrupting you. I would not have done so had there not been great need.’

  ‘There is no need for forgiveness,’ said Ibrahim Buktari. ‘We know you would not have come if you had not thought it important.’

  ‘If you say there is need,’ said Hamdan, ‘then there is need.’

  The Signora inclined her head in thanks. Abd al Jawad wanted to lead her to a divan but she refused, protesting that it was not meet for a woman to sit in the presence of men. The men insisted, however, and finally she took up a place, alone, on one of the divans.

  There were not enough places for the others and Aisha went out of the room and returned with cushions, which she spread on the floor. Then she left the room.

  The Signora fixed her eyes on Owen.

  ‘I come,’ she said, ‘because you have taken Fahmy.’

  ‘You come,’ said Owen, ‘like the others here, in friendship.’

  The Signora nodded.