The Snake Catcher’s Daughter mz-8 Read online

  “That is unjust,” said Owen quietly.

  Mahmoud shifted uncomfortably.

  “It is not your fault,” he said. “It is because you are an Englishman.”

  Oh no, thought Owen, so that’s what it is.

  “Have you forgotten so soon?” he said reproachfully. “I am not an Englishman.”

  Something stirred down in the dumps. Arab, Mahmoud might be, and liable to plunge into the trough of depression; but Arab, he still was, and unable to forgive himself for anything that seemed a breach of courtesy. He raised a hand apologetically.

  “I am not always clear,” he said, “about the difference between an Englishman and a Welshman.”

  “This is fighting talk,” said Owen.

  Mahmoud managed something that was a little like a smile. He took a sip of coffee, looked at it with surprise and took another sip.

  “What have we done this time?” asked Owen.

  “We? I thought you were a Welshman?” said Mahmoud, beginning to sparkle.

  “We have a pact with them.”

  “If you have, it’s a pact with the devil.”

  “Are things that bad?”

  “Well-”

  Mahmoud looked round and waved for more coffee. He was beginning to brisk up. That was a good sign. Mahmoud, in normal form, had all the briskness and sharpness of a mongoose.

  “They won’t give me access,” he said.

  “Access?”

  “To the files. It is quite improper. To refuse a request from the Ministry of Justice, from the Government. Whose country do they think this is?”

  “Hold on. Whose files are we talking about?”

  “Garvin’s, Wainwright’s, Mustapha Mir’s. Yours.”

  “I haven’t refused you access.”

  “Haven’t you?”

  “I’m still thinking about it.”

  “It’s not going to be up to you. An in-principle decision has been taken. By the Consul-General.”

  “I’ll have a word with Paul.”

  “It’ll be no good. This goes deep, you see. It raises big questions. The biggest,” said Mahmoud bitterly, “is: who governs this country? And we know the answer to that, don’t we?” Owen tried to think what to say. Mahmoud, however, was not expecting a reply.

  “It’s the principle of the thing,” he said vehemently. “It is fundamental to the administration of justice. The investigating officer must have access to relevant documents. No one, no one should be able to refuse. No one should be above the law. Neither I nor you, nor the Khedive, nor the British. We are all equal before the law. Everyone! That is what justice is.”

  “Yes,” said Owen, “but this is Egypt.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It should make no difference.”

  “It is the difference,” said Owen, “between an ideal and reality.”

  “Yes, but,” said Mahmoud, all excited now, “on this there must be no compromise. Or where shall we be? One law for one, one for another”-forgetting that in Egypt there were at least three legal systems-“No!” He banged his fist on the table. The cups jumped. Owen looked around apprehensively; but other people, all over the place, seemed to be banging their fists too. It was the normal mode of Arab conversation. They were probably talking about something as innocuous as the weather. “We cannot have it!” shouted Mahmoud. “Not as Egyptians, no, nor as English, but as part of mankind! It is our right!”

  He banged his fist so fiercely that even some of the other bangers looked round.

  “And as Welshmen, too,” added Mahmoud, a little selfconsciously.

  What was he going to do? Owen asked himself. Not about Mahmoud’s depression-he was bouncing out of it now and was once more rearing to go-but about the issue of principle? The Consul-General had defined it and that ought to have been the end of it for any member of the British Administration. But Owen wasn’t, or, at least, not quite, entirely a member of the British Administration and interpreted himself as having some degree of latitude. He didn’t have to go along with it if he didn’t want to.

  “Why don’t they let me investigate?” cried Mahmoud, firing up again. “Have they something to hide?”

  “I doubt it. It’s just the normal bureaucratic reaction.”

  “Is it that they do not trust me?” demanded Mahmoud fiercely.

  “No, no, no, no. It’s nothing like that.”

  Except that in a way it was. Every administrator-and Owen was one himself-developed a kind of plural sense of the truth. They knew the truth had more than one side. The difference between Owen and the others, however, was that whereas for them there were only two sides-their Department’s and anyone else’s-for him there were so many sides that he couldn’t keep up with them. Mahmoud, on the other hand, believed that there was only one truth, which it was his job to discover.

  People who felt like that were always difficult to deal with. They recognized everybody else’s partiality but not their own. They made, however, very good investigators.

  “They look down on me,” said Mahmoud, “because I am an Egyptian!”

  “Nonsense!”

  He knew, however, that he would have to do something. “I’ll tell you what,” he said: “you can look at my files.” Mahmoud stopped in his rhetorical tracks.

  “I can?”

  “Or rather, Mustapha Mir’s. Those relating to that period. The ones we can find,” he amended, remembering what Nikos had said.

  “That will be something,” said Mahmoud. “That, in fact, would be a great help.”

  “I hope so.”

  “But, look,” said Mahmoud, remembering that Owen was his friend, and concerned, “I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “How will you get round the Consul-General’s ruling?”

  “No one’s told me about it yet,” said Owen. “By the time they do, it might be too late.”

  “No one’s said anything about it yet.”

  The necklace hung casually on a hook beside Zeinab’s dressing table. It had not been admitted to the silver box where she kept her bracelets, rings and other jewellery.

  “That’s funny,” said Owen, picking it up. “You’d have expected someone to have claimed the credit by now.”

  “Or the reward?”

  “There isn’t going to be a reward,” said Owen firmly.

  “No?”

  Zeinab put the necklace back on the hook; which was exactly where she liked to keep Owen.

  “You’re right, though,” he said, reflecting. “No one gives something for nothing. The question is: what reward did they have in mind?”

  “I’d have thought that was obvious,” said Zeinab.

  “That’s what I thought, too. But the fact that they haven’t come forward is making me think again.”

  “What else could it be?”

  “Either it’s part of some deal your father is cooking up-”

  “Forget about my father. He usually tells me if he’s thinking of me marrying someone.”

  “-or else, or else, it’s not really to do with you at all, it’s-”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s something to do with me.”

  “Oh, come, darling-”

  “It’s like those earrings. The ones that were sent to Garvin. Or rather, to Garvin’s wife.”

  He told her about them. Zeinab listened seriously.

  “First the diamond,” she said, “then this. I think you ought to go a bit carefully, darling. For a while.”

  “Yes, you’re right. We ought to be a bit careful with the necklace. See it’s kept somewhere.”

  “Your pocket, perhaps?” suggested Zeinab.

  The Aalima, straight-backed and veiled, was waiting to receive him. The coffee pot was already standing on the low table beside the divan and the pleasant aroma of the coffee filled the room. The shutters were closed because of the intense heat, but enough light came through the slots to make it unnecessary to use a lamp.

  The
Aalima was more relaxed this time and conversation was conducted at a proper pace. Owen fell naturally into the long, graceful Arabic salutations and then gradually, feigning proper reluctance, allowed himself to be persuaded to sip his coffee, praising it copiously. One of the things he liked about visiting Egyptians was that their courteous insistence on observing the forms reduced everything to a slow rhythm. Owen was all in favour of slow rhythms, especially in heat like this.

  They discussed the hot spell and wondered when it would end; and little by little the conversation turned to the point of his visit.

  “I have done what you wished,” said the Aalima at last. “I have asked my women what happened in the courtyard that night.”

  “And?”

  The Aalima frowned.

  “It is bad,” she said. “I wish I had never agreed. Either to their suggestion that I let him see or to his own insistence. It was bad. And bad comes to bad.”

  “It was bad to drug him, certainly.”

  “What followed was worse. Men came into the courtyard.”

  “Is not that forbidden?”

  “They said they had my word. My women knew that I had made some agreement and thought that this was part of it. That is what I meant when I said that bad leads to bad.”

  “They used you for their own ends.”

  “That is always the way,” said the Aalima, “with men.”

  Owen said nothing.

  “It spoiled it,” said the Aalima. “It destroyed the sanctity of the Zzarr. I should not have agreed. Now I shall have to do it again.”

  “You have, of course, done it again, and I hope my presence did not spoil it that time.”

  “We shall have to see. All I know is that what I did the first time was not successful.”

  “The spirits remained after?”

  The Aalima inclined her head.

  “Not surprisingly,” she said.

  “What did your women see?”

  “Men came into the courtyard. They took the Bimbashi on his chair and carried him out.”

  “Did they know the men?”

  The Aalima shook her head.

  “Would they know them again?”

  “It was dark.”

  “They carried him out of the courtyard. Did your women see where they carried him to?”

  The Aalima hesitated.

  “This is the worst part,” she said. “They carried him back into the outer courtyard.” She looked at Owen. “So that everyone could see.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “They showed him to those who were there. They raised him on his chair.”

  Still Owen did not understand.

  “There were people in the courtyard?”

  “Many.”

  “And McPhee was…displayed?”

  “Yes. They said: ‘See how the Zzarr has been violated! And see who has done it!’ ”

  “No one has told me this.”

  “I did not know it either,” said the Aalima, “until I asked.”

  Sheikh Musa sighed.

  “Well, of course!” he said. “That was exactly the problem. After that there could be no denying it. Everyone had seen. I did my best. I tried to play it down. ‘Zzarr?’ I said. ‘What Zzarr? The church does not know any such thing.’ Which was all very well, except that everyone else did. To deny that there had been a Bimbashi as well would have been too much. It would have been like performing a sort of inverse miracle.” Owen found himself warming to the Sheikh.

  “I very much regret any difficulty or embarrassment this has caused you,” he said.

  The Sheikh shrugged and spread his hands.

  “I don’t suppose he intended it,” he said.

  “The very last thing he would have wished would have been to cause offence.”

  “Maybe,” said the Sheikh; “but he was there, wasn’t he?”

  “He was brought there by a trick.”

  “Why would anyone wish to do that?” asked Sheikh Musa. “I could understand if it had been a mosque. There are always those who wish to fan the flames of religious division. But a Zzarr? Why a Zzarr?”

  “Because they knew McPhee would come to it. If it had been a mosque or anything to do with orthodox religious practice he wouldn’t have touched it. He has great, genuine respect for such matters and knows too much about them to be inveigled into doing something that would offend. But a Zzarr, well, a Zzarr would be different. For him it is the past, from the days before there was Islam or even Christianity. That kind of thing fascinates him.”

  “If they knew that about him,” said Sheikh Musa, “then they must have known him well.”

  He had gone to the Sheikh hoping that he could have put him into touch with people who had been present in the outer courtyard that night and who had seen the whole thing. After considerable hesitation-the Sheikh, like Owen, still had hopes that the whole thing would die away and be quietly forgotten, and had no wish to do anything which might resurrect sleeping embers-he had reluctantly agreed to let Owen meet two suitable members of his flock. They had certainly been present; unfortunately, they had been chosen for their trustworthiness and discretion rather than for their ability to convey their impressions of what they had seen, and he got little out of them.

  Yes, the Bimbashi had been brought out into the outer courtyard and lifted up on a chair so that he could be clearly seen by all who were present. “In the torchlight,” one of them added. “Drunk,” said the other.

  “Not drunk,” said Owen, “drugged.”

  The two remained unconvinced.

  “In a thing like this,” said the Sheikh afterwards, “people believe what is said at the time.”

  Owen asked about the men. They came from outside the Gamaliya. The two were quite sure of this. Most Cairenes, probably wisely, were sure of this sort of fact whenever it fell to their lot to witness a crime. Owen did not insist.

  But what had happened to McPhee at the end, after he had been shown to the assembled population? He had been taken away, the men said vaguely. Who by? The same men? Probably. Couldn’t they remember anything about it? Nothing at all. How many men had there been, Owen asked desperately? Four. Or rather two. Plus one who had led them. Three, then? The men conferred. You might say that; yes, you might say that. What was this other one like? A lowly man, they said with scorn. Lowly? Definitely. A fellah? Worse than that. But was not that strange, a mere fellah, and a leader?

  Ah, well, he hadn’t exactly been their leader, at least, not like that, more one who had shown them the way. He had known the way, then, himself? Seemed to. And the others had not? Definitely not. They were from outside the Gamaliya. And the other one? The one who had led? Couldn’t see, it was dark, etc., etc.

  So he had come from the Gamaliya. In fact, he must have known the Gamaliya well to have been able to guide the men into a backyard and then to the cistern into which they had dropped McPhee.

  That wasn’t the sort of place you hit on by accident as you were fleeing. McPhee must have been dropped there deliberately, as a kind of cruel joke. Which suggested that the man, the lowly one who had guided them, had known it was there.

  Owen decided to go and see Jalila.

  The yard was busy now. Semi-finished screens for the large, box-like windows which were a feature of old Cairo were propped up everywhere with men bent over them applying the final touches. Elsewhere, men were working on earlier stages. In one corner they were doing the preliminary sawing, holding the wood in their toes; in another they were turning the pegs with little pigmy-like bows. All the work was being done on the ground, none on benches.

  Owen greeted the men politely and asked for Jalila. You did not usually ask for women by name-in fact, you did not usually ask for women at all-but snake-catchers’ daughters were different. One of the men went to the back of the yard and called up to a window at the top of some wooden stairs. A moment later, Jalila appeared.

  “There’s an Effendi here who wishes to speak with you, Jalila.”
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  “Oh, it’s you,” said Jalila, pleased, and came down the stairs.

  “Posh friends our Jalila’s got!” one of the workmen said to another.

  “He’s probably been showing her a snake. Or something,” said the other.

  As Jalila went past the cistern she put her arm down into it and scooped out a snake; which she promptly threw in the direction of the speakers.

  There was pandemonium in the yard as the workmen dropped their work and jumped hastily out of the way. Jalila stood for a moment, hands on hips, enjoying the panic, then walked across, picked up the snake and put it back in the cistern.

  “I hope that one was milked,” said Owen.

  “Maybe,” said Jalila. “Maybe not.”

  “Can we talk?”

  Jalila led him up the stairs and then up another flight round the side of the building and so on to the roof. Some rolled up mattresses suggested that like many Cairo roofs, especially in hot weather, it was used for sleeping.

  “You were not, of course, up here the night the Bimbashi was put in the cistern?”

  “I was at the Zzarr.”

  “Of course. Was-was-” he was not sure of her circumstances-“anyone else up here?”

  “My father was sleeping with Ali Haja’s widow. In another house.”

  “I was wondering if anyone had heard anything. People on other roofs, perhaps.”

  “If they did, no one has said so.”

  “Isn’t that strange? A hot night, in the open. Surely someone must have heard.”

  “No one has said anything. I do not know if that is strange.”

  “It is, of course, possible that no one heard anything. If that were so it would be because the men came quietly. And if that were so, it would be because they knew their way, or at least, one of them did.”

  “Many people know the yard.”

  “And the cistern?”

  “They might if they had come here on business. To see my father.”

  Owen was disappointed. He had hoped he was narrowing things down.

  “Even so,” he said, “it means they must have known the Gamaliya. More, this part of the Gamaliya. And I think that is true, for they knew of the Aalima, and they knew which house was the Copt’s.”