The Night of the Dog

by Michael Pearce

  ‘Applying it, then, to the Copts,’ said Owen, ‘what do we get?’

  ‘Someone on the Coptic side wants to keep things on the boil, wants to stop agreement from being reached. To do that, they’re even prepared to give money to Moslems.’

  ‘To be used against Copts?’

  ‘All the more effective,’ said Nikos, ‘if you wanted to keep things on the boil.’

  Georgiades put his mug back on the tray.

  ‘Someone’s a clever bastard,’ he said. ‘Of course, it may just be you.’

  ‘It fits,’ said Owen. ‘It explains the money.’

  ‘Not only that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Owen. ‘It explains Andrus too.’

  One of the bearers rushed into the office.

  ‘Effendi! Come quickly. Yussuf has taken a knife!’

  Owen ran down the corridor and into the bearers’ room. There were shocked faces everywhere but no Yussuf.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He ran out, effendi. He said he would kill them.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Suleiman, effendi. And Fatima.’

  One of the bearers plucked at his arm.

  ‘He took my knife, effendi. He took my knife.’

  ‘Where is Suleiman’s house?’

  It was in the bazaar area.

  ‘Take me there.’

  The man ran out with Owen on his heels. Two of the other bearers followed.

  From the Bab el Khalk to the Bab es Zuweyla was about half a mile. A man would go faster than an arabeah, certainly if you took into account the time needed to explain it to the arabeah driver. The bearer set off along the wide, dusty street. He was one of the younger bearers and ran fast. Owen found it hard to keep up with him. Within a minute the sweat was pouring off him and his jacket sticking to his back.

  The bearer slowed to let him come up with him.

  ‘Run on!’ said Owen. ‘Fast.’

  This was how they could save time, catch up. Once they were through the Gate they wouldn’t be able to run at all. The streets would be too crowded.

  The bearer drew away again. He was running barefoot and had the advantage over Owen in his heavy shoes. By the time they had reached the Gate he was a dozen or more yards ahead.

  Owen dashed up almost blinded with sweat.

  ‘On! Get on!’ he managed to gasp.

  The bearer plunged at once into the warren of tiny streets, alleyways and passages between stalls that made up the area loosely known as the Bazaars. Every road, every lane, even the narrowest of alleys was taken up with stalls. And wherever there was a stall, inevitably the passage was blocked by the wares which spread out from it, covering the ground on all sides, stretching right across the thoroughfare so that there was indeed no thoroughfare but you had to pick your way among pots and pans, saddles, boots, baskets, melons, bales of cloth, onions, and canvases appliqued with texts from the Koran and crude copies of the tomb-paintings of the Pharaohs.

  And wherever there was a suggestion of a space there would be a craftsman bent over his work: a weaver over his loom, a metal-worker crouched over a dish of grey ash fanning a lump of live charcoal in its midst with a blowpipe, a basket-worker holding what he was making with his toes so as to leave his hands free, a turner doing his turning with a little bow which might have been used to shoot arrows, the man making pegs for the ornate wooden windows.

  Owen was in despair. Not only could he find no space to put even one foot, but whenever he hesitated, hands reached up at him beckoning him to buy. He slowed almost to a halt.

  The bearer kept looking back at him. Owen would have told the man to run on but without him he would have been lost at once. What had happened to the two other bearers who had started out with them he did not know.

  The bearer pulled him into a passage so thin that even the narrowest of stalls could not wedge itself in. There was barely space for a person to pass. Half way along they met a woman. She pushed herself back against the wall to avoid touching a man but as Owen pressed past her he was as conscious of her roundnesses and softnesses as if he had been in bed beside her.

  They came out into a slightly wider passage where there were no stalls but children were playing and black-gowned women standing in doorways talking. They looked up at him in surprise and pulled their veils back across their faces. One or two snatched up their children and held them close, making signs to warn off the evil eye. This was medieval Cairo, medieval still.

  They went up another narrow passageway, not so much a passage as a mere slit between houses, and came out suddenly into open space. After the darkness and coolness the light and heat struck him like a blow.

  The bearer looked round. Everywhere was rubble. There wasn’t a single building standing for hundreds of yards. The ground was covered with crumbling mud bricks, heaps of cracked white stone. A dog barked and was answered by another. Out in the rubble he saw others skulking.

  Then he realized where they were: the Coptic Place of the Dead.

  The bearer turned left along a line of houses they had just come out of. The big ones they had passed through gave way to smaller, two-storey ones built of mud brick which the rains were gradually dissolving. Everything was crumbling, falling down. Here and there were gaps in the line where houses had collapsed completely.

  There was a piercing whistle and a little boy ran across the rubble towards them.

  ‘Effendi! Effendi!’

  It was the boy he had met when Georgiades had taken him back to the Place of the Dead; Ali, Yussuf’s nephew.

  ‘This way!’

  He raced off across the rubble. Owen stumbled behind him, his feet sliding and tripping on the loose stones.

  They came to a blank white stuccoed wall. Owen stopped abruptly. The boy had completely disappeared.

  ‘Effendi! Here!’

  To his left an urgent face, an arm beckoning. He ran across.

  ‘Under here!’

  There was a gap in the lower part of the wall big enough for a boy, hardly big enough for a man to squeeze through. He forced his way through it. They were in what had been a walled garden and was now just a mass of rubble. Ali turned immediately to his right and climbed over a broken-down wall. They were in another disused, rubble-filled space which might once have been a yard or garden.

  Ali ran to the next wall.

  ‘Effendi! Quickly!’

  ‘Is he there?’

  ‘Yes, but they have barred the door.’

  Owen found a hole in the wall, used it as a stepping place and swung his leg over the top. Then he stopped.

  Below him was another space which had once been a courtyard. It was filled now with heaps of brick and stone. These had perhaps once been outhouses which had long ago fallen down. Piles of rubble lay against the side of the house. There had once been an outside staircase leading up to the flat roof but that, too, had collapsed. There was a mud brick wall round the roof of the house, over which looked two agitated faces, those of a man and a woman. The wall was crumbling and there were great gaps in it. It offered no defence; and defence was needed, for on the opposite side of the yard a wall ran right up to the house and although it was lower than the roof an agile man might easily scramble from it up on to the roof itself. And along the wall a man was climbing. Yussuf.

  ‘Yussuf!’

  Yussuf stopped, startled. He looked round, saw Owen and hesitated.

  ‘Yussuf! Come down at once.’

  Yussuf almost started to obey. Then he shook his head and began to climb determinedly on. In between his teeth he was holding a huge knife.

  The wall was narrow and missing many of its bricks. It was not easy to climb along it and he had to go slowly. He needed both hands as well as his toes.

  Owen called again but Yussuf ignored him. The faces on the roof disappeared and then appeared again. A woman began screaming.

  Owen threw himself over the wall and dropped down. He had hoped to find a door. There was one but it was blocked up. There was no
other way in which he could get up to the roof.

  ‘Have you a gun, effendi?’

  He shook his head. He never carried one unless there was a special reason why he might have to use it. He would never have thought of bringing it out against Yussuf.

  He looked round for a stick or prop which he could use to dislodge Yussuf. There wasn’t one. Wood was as scarce as silver in the poorer parts of Cairo.

  He seized a brick desperately and threw it at Yussuf. It hit the wall four feet below him. Ali threw, more accurately. The brick hit Yussuf and jolted him but he shrugged it aside. The top of the wall was in better repair closer to the house and he scurried along it.

  He had almost reached the house when another brick hit him. It would have struck him in the face if at the last moment, sensing it coming, he had not ducked his head. The movement threw him off balance. A brick beneath him crumbled and suddenly the whole wall began to sag. Yussuf tried to recover his balance, tried to jump, but the wall collapsed too fast. It subsided in a great cloud of dust. Yussuf was pitched off on to the other side. They heard the heavy thud as he fell.

  Owen ran across. The dust was so thick that for a moment he could not see. Then, below him on the rubble, he made out Yussuf’s motionless body.

  And beyond him, for some strange reason, on the other side of the neighbouring courtyard, was a totally amazed and bemused Mahmoud.

  Owen slid down into the courtyard in a small shower of mud and masonry.

  There was a woman standing beside Mahmoud. She had thrown her hands up over her face in shock. He could see the hands very clearly; well enough to notice the handpainting.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ said Mahmoud. He rarely swore.

  ‘My bearer,’ said Owen briefly.

  He knelt beside Yussuf. There was an ugly wound on his head. If he breathed it was imperceptible.

  Ali came across and touched Yussuf with his foot.

  ‘He is not dead,’ he said.

  Ali was an expert on such matters.

  The woman brought water from the house, knelt down beside Yussuf and began to mop his wound. Ali went and sat in the shade.

  Owen went across to Mahmoud.

  ‘What’s she doing here?’ He motioned to the woman kneeling beside Yussuf.

  ‘Don’t you remember? You told me.’

  ‘Christ, is this where she lives?’

  ‘Where she lives now. She’s moved, if you remember.’

  ‘Have you talked to her?’

  ‘I was talking to her.’

  ‘Did you find out anything?’

  ‘Not much. A man certainly came that night but it was to see her, not her husband.’

  ‘That late?’

  ‘She wouldn’t see him before. It wouldn’t have been proper to have seen him alone. Her husband was out.’

  ‘So the man waited till he got back?’

  ‘He knew he would be late. Zoser was at the church.’

  ‘Zoser says. She says. It would be worth checking.’

  ‘It’s easily checked. Zoser occasionally stayed late to help with the charity dispensation. She was involved with that, too. That was what the man came to see her about. There were some women he wanted her to take relief to. She often did that, she says. Of course, the men couldn’t go to the women themselves.’

  ‘Did the man talk to her husband?’

  ‘She doesn’t think so.’

  The woman went into the house to get some water. Yussuf was beginning to stir. Mahmoud went across and picked the knife up out of the rubble.

  Ali had been listening to the discussion.

  ‘I know that woman,’ he said.

  ‘How do you know her?’

  ‘She was at the house that night. The night of the dog.’

  ‘The House of Andrus?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She is a relative of Andrus?’

  ‘No, no.’ Ali was shocked that anyone could make a mistake so gross.

  ‘She was there to cry.’

  Owen thought he understood. She must be a professional mourner. When a significant person died, women were sometimes hired to weep during the funeral ceremonies.

  ‘Andrus paid her?’

  ‘No,’ said the woman, returning with the water. ‘No one paid me. Much. I do it out of friendship.’

  ‘For Andrus?’

  ‘Not for him especially. I do it for all of the community. Other families were in the Place of the Dead that night. I was with Sesostris. He sent me to Andrus in the early part of the night because he knew Andrus lacked women.’

  ‘In the early part of the night? Did you go past the Tomb of Andrus?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you see anything untoward?’

  ‘Only the shadows,’ said the woman. ‘I saw the shadows and was frightened. It is the night that the spirits return.’

  ‘And did you see them about the tomb?’

  ‘Yes, and I was frightened and hurried on. When I reached the House of Andrus I spoke of it to the other women and we said a prayer. And when I left, I looked again, and there were no shadows, so I knew our prayer had been heard.’

  ‘That was in the morning? Before the dawn?’

  ‘No. It was in the middle of the night. I had to mourn for Sesostris so I went back to his house.’

  ‘You only spent part of the night with Andrus?’

  ‘The early part. Then I went to Sesostris. And then at dawn I went to Zakatellos. I had promised him I would be there for the Visit.’

  She bent over Yussuf and splashed water on his face. He opened his eyes, saw her and struggled to sit up.

  ‘Away, woman!’ he said. ‘I have no need of Copts.’

  ‘You have a need of someone,’ she said, ‘whoever it be.’

  ‘Was your husband with you?’ asked Owen.

  ‘No. He was keeping vigil at the church.’

  ‘And you were at the Houses. Were you with Andrus when he went to the Tomb?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you did not know about the dog?’

  ‘Not till later. I was with Sesostris when one ran and told us.’

  ‘And you told your husband?’

  ‘When I got home.’

  ‘And did he speak with Andrus?’

  ‘Not then. Later. When Andrus came to visit me.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Owen.

  ‘I’ve done the checking you wanted,’ said Georgiades, ‘and it’s not been easy, I can tell you. I went first to his business premises. It’s not a bad little business. He does all right. Nothing huge, small to medium. Nowhere near big enough for him to finance the war on his own, especially as he gives such a lot to charity. And he does give it to charity. There’s no doubt about that. I’ve talked to his personal clerk. Steady sums, increasing over the years as he’s become more pious. The clerk is secretary to the charity programme of the church and knows the recipients.’

  ‘Zoser?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Not in money. In kind, perhaps. Favours, maybe. He does people quite a lot of those.’

  ‘And they do him some. Go back to the money. Does he finance the charitable programme himself?’

  ‘The church’s? No, they all chip in. Andrus put in a fair amount but bigger boys give more.’

  ‘OK. So after living expenses and charity there’s not a lot left over. Not enough to finance all the agitation on the Coptic side, let alone the Moslems as well.’

  ‘Nowhere near enough.’

  ‘So the money he gives to Osman must come from somewhere else. Does he have a bank for his business or does he just use cash?’

  ‘He’s got to have a bank. His business is international, remember. He sometimes needs quite sophisticated credit arrangements.’

  ‘Do you know which one?’

  ‘Yes. He is a small businessman and he likes to deal with small bankers. They’ve got to be Coptic, of course, and preferably someone he’s met through the church. He goes to Sesostris.’

  ‘So he could
be getting the money there?’

  ‘Don’t rush me. Next, I checked on his movements on Fridays. That’s the day, remember, when he takes the money to Mordecai. It’s the Moslem Sabbath, of course, so a good day for Copts to do business on. Well, it’s hard to check the whole day, as you can imagine. But that is the day, it appears, when he regularly goes to his own bank. He’s been doing it for years. So far as I can tell, and that’s not as far as I’d like, on the last few Fridays he’s not been going to any other bank or finance house. Nor is there any single person whom he’s been visiting regularly.’

  ‘Anyone come to see him?’

  ‘Not at the business. Nor at home, as far as I can tell from his servants. Possibly at the church house, where, as you know, he’s been spending a lot of time recently.’

  ‘So it could very well be the bank?’

  ‘That’s what I thought, too. So then I went to the bank and asked politely in the name of the Mamur Zapt if I could check Andrus’s account. Sesostris said no.’

  ‘He can’t say no. Not if it’s the Mamur Zapt.’

  ‘Well, I said it was the Mamur Zapt and he said no. He wants proper legal notification.’

  ‘I’ll bloody notify him. Deliver it personally. In the cell.’

  ‘He’s an awkward bugger. Andrus and he are two of a kind. Difficult sods, both. However, mere refusal does not stop me. I talked to the tellers. They said yes, Andrus did come on Fridays and had been doing so for years. Any especially big drawings lately? Well, they said, they wouldn’t know, since he always went straight in to Sesostris. Again, his pattern for years. No change here. Also it’s the way the bank works. Sesostris does it all personally. The Copts like that. It’s always man-to-man stuff with them. Funny, considering how they also like to put it all down on paper.’

  ‘Are you saying Sesostris hands over the cash personally?’

  ‘No. The Cashier does that. Andrus just pops in to see Sesostris and they have a bit of a chat, not a long one, they don’t even have a cup of coffee, mean bastards, both of them, and then Andrus goes on to the Cashier presumably with Sesostris’s authorization and the Cashier takes the money out of the safe and gives it to him. I tried to have a word with the Cashier but he wasn’t talking. More than his job’s worth, I suppose, though these Copts are always tight-mouthed as well as tight-fisted. Well, not all of them. I got something out of the tellers. One of them said that Andrus normally took his money away in a small bag, one he could conceal under his gown, it’s safer that way. But for the last week or two he’s had to use a bigger bag. The Charity programme’s been growing. Actually it has, though whether by enough to require a bigger bag I haven’t been able to make out.’