The Snake Catcher's Daughter Page 14

  “Radical papers aren’t really interested in sales.”

  “Don’t you kid yourself. They’re interested in sales, all right. They want to spread their gospel.”

  “So why run the risk by doing this?”

  “Why, indeed? It’s hardly worth it, is it? Not just for merely another attack on the British.”

  “It’s not just another attack, though, is it? It’s a very specific attack; on us.”

  “On all three of us,” said Owen. “And now I’m beginning to wonder. Maybe the McPhee business is not an isolated event, after all. And maybe, the girl in my bed, the diamond, the necklace, are part of it, too. They’re all bound up together; bound up with reopening the Philipides case as well.”

  “They’re trying to get us out,” said Garvin, “all three of us. That’s the game. That’s what it is all about.”

  “If that’s the game,” said Owen, “it’s a daft one. If we went, the Administration would just put three other Britishers in.”

  “Al-Lewa would hail it as a triumph.”

  “Maybe they would. But I don’t think they’re behind this. It isn’t their sort of thing.”

  “Maybe it’s about time you found out who is behind it,” said Garvin sourly, “instead of spending all your time drinking coffee in cafés and generally sitting about like a lemon.”

  Chapter Ten

  Commotion in the Bab-el-Khalk. Cries in the courtyard, activity—unusual, this—in the orderly room. Owen, in his office, heard the agitated slap of slippers coming towards him. It was late in the afternoon and he was the only senior Effendi in the building.

  “Effendi, there is a snake in the orderlies’ lavatory.”

  “Has it bitten someone?”

  “No, effendi, but Suleiman wants to use the lavatory.”

  “Tell him to use another one. Oh, and send for the snake catcher.”

  Doubt.

  “Effendi—?”

  “Yes?”

  “Abdulla is in hospital.”

  Abdulla was the usual snake catcher.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He has hurt his back.”

  “Send for another.”

  “We have, effendi. We sent for Ibrahim and he’s not there.”

  “Surely there must be someone else? What about my snake catcher? He’s a good one.”

  “Yes, effendi, but Farouz knows him and says he is visiting his son today.”

  “Well, wait a minute, there’s one in the Gamaliya. Abu, his name is. Try him.”

  Later.

  Commotion again.

  “What the hell is it this time?”

  “Effendi, he’s sent a woman.”

  “What woman? Oh, Jalila. She’s all right. What’s the matter?”

  “She’s a woman, effendi.”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “It wouldn’t be proper.”

  “Does it matter? As long as she gets rid of the snake?”

  “Oh, yes, effendi”—chorus—“it wouldn’t be right at all.”

  “Why not?”

  “What would a woman know about it? Catching snakes is a man’s job.”

  “She can do it. I’ve seen her.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “She would be frightened, effendi.”

  “No, she wouldn’t. I’ve seen her get into a tank of snakes.”

  “She might get hurt.”

  “No, she wouldn’t. I’ve seen her, I tell you. She knows all about it.”

  “Effendi—”

  He decided he’d better go down. It was indeed Jalila. She was looking defiant.

  “I can do it,” she said. “I often help my father.”

  “Helping is one thing, doing another.”

  “Why can’t he come himself?” asked Owen.

  “He’s—he’s not well.”

  “He’s dead drunk,” said one of the orderlies.

  “He can’t come. He’s sent me.”

  “He doesn’t know anything about it.”

  “Effendi,” appealed Jalila desperately, “we need the money.”

  “The Rifa’i wouldn’t like it,” an orderly said.

  Owen thought that was probably true.

  “Is he really drunk?” he asked Jalila.

  Jalila hung her head.

  “Yes, effendi,” she said miserably. “He always is these days.”

  “It’s shame,” said one of the orderlies. “Shame at having a daughter like this.”

  Jalila looked at him savagely.

  “Can’t he be woken up?”

  “No, effendi,” said Jalila sadly. “When he’s like this he sleeps for a day and a night.”

  “Perhaps we’d better leave it till tomorrow,” said Owen.

  “Effendi, Suleiman—”

  “You can’t have it both ways,” Owen snapped. “If you won’t let her do it, you’ll just have to manage without.”

  “It would be all right if her father was here,” someone muttered. “No one minds her helping.”

  Owen suddenly had an idea.

  “Very well. Fetch him!”

  “Fetch him?”

  “Carry him if necessary.”

  Abu was fetched. He arrived slung unceremoniously across a donkey and snoring loudly.

  “Right. Put him down.”

  Abu was dumped in the courtyard. Owen bent over him. The stench of alcohol rose up and hit him in the nose.

  “He’s out for the count, all right,” he said.

  “Effendi,” said Jalila in despair, “believe me, he won’t wake up—”

  “Never mind that. You get on with it.”

  “Get on with it?”

  “He’s here, isn’t he? Right, well, you’re helping.”

  Jalila looked at him doubtfully.

  “Go on. Get on with it.”

  Jalila picked up her bag and set out across the yard to the little, square mud-brick building which was the orderlies’ lavatory.

  The orderlies watched interestedly.

  “Rather her than me.”

  “It’s fortunate it’s only a woman.”

  Beside the lavatory was a heap of rags which got up as Jalila approached.

  “Who’s that?” said Owen.

  “Nassem. He cleans the lavatory.”

  Jalila spoke to him and they went round to the back of the lavatory. A moment later Jalila reappeared following a trail which led to a hole in the large whitewashed wall which surrounded the courtyard. On the other side was a piece of wasteland. Owen, guiltily, was reminded of his garden.

  Jalila put her bag down and stood for a moment looking around her carefully. A large crowd had gathered, most of them orderlies from within the building, in the hope of seeing something interesting, like the hunt going wrong.

  Jalila’s eye lit on a small heap of crumbled masonry. She approached it carefully and then squatted down to think. Owen could see what the problem was. The snake was down the hole under the masonry and Jalila couldn’t get at its tail. Snake catchers liked to approach from the rear and seize the tail. That way it couldn’t twine round something and hold fast.

  Jalila went back to her bag, put her hand in and pulled out a snake. She held it for a moment or two in her hand, stroking the back of its head gently with her finger. Then she put it down on the ground in front of the hole. It found a warm brick and settled itself comfortably in the sun.

  Nothing happened for about a quarter of an hour. Then something stirred in the hole. A little dark head appeared. It hung there uncertainly for a moment or two and then slid out.

  When the snake’s whole body was clear of the hole, Jalila pounced, pinning it to the ground with her stick. It tried to rear but couldn’t. The head lifted and spat.


  Still pinning it with one hand, Jalila dangled a fold of her skirt in front of its face. The snake struck at it savagely, then withdrew its head and struck again. As it lifted its head back, Owen could see the yellow drops on the cloth.

  Jalila teased it again, and then again. The snake went on striking until it was exhausted.

  “The bag,” said Jalila, “bring me the bag.”

  Owen pushed it towards her. She opened it with one hand and then, quick as a flash, dropped the stick, seized the snake with two hands, lifted it and dropped it in, closing the neck of the bag quickly. For a moment the bag thrashed about. Then it went still.

  Unhurriedly, Jalila picked up the other snake, still drowsy about the brick, and dropped that in as well. Then she tied the neck of the bag.

  “Well, that was rather disappointing,” said one of the orderlies.

  “It all looked a bit easy to me,” said another.

  “I don’t think the snake was really trying. Probably knew it was a woman.”

  “Yes, you get more excitement with a man.”

  “Ah, well, that’s because snake catching’s not really a job for a woman.”

  “Lucky her father was here.”

  “Back inside!” said Owen. “All of you. The fantasia is over for the day.”

  He paid Jalila generously.

  “What about your father?”

  Jalila shrugged.

  “He can lie there until he comes to,” she said. “He won’t know where he is but that’s no different from any other time.”

  “You were very good,” said Owen. “It’s harder when you can’t see their tails.”

  Jalila was pleased and went off beaming.

  That evening, as he came out of the Bab-el-Khalk, she was waiting for him.

  “I want to thank you,” she said. “They wouldn’t have accepted it if you hadn’t made them.”

  “I had seen you with snakes,” he said. “Remember?”

  She fell in beside him shyly.

  “Yes,” she said. “That—that is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  In fact, for some time she didn’t say anything. As they passed a sherbet shop, Owen considered buying her a sherbet. It was, of course, a thing you did not do; but then, you didn’t walk down the street with stray young women, either, not unless they were very stray. Jalila, admittedly, was walking a step behind him, to keep things decent. The position was doubly respectable, since it was a little out to one side, where a suppliant might walk. A wife would walk directly behind. The darkness, however, was probably the greatest safeguard of Jalila’s reputation.

  “You were kind to me,” she said suddenly, “so I will help you. You asked me once if I saw the men who had taken the Bimbashi. I did not, but—”

  “Yes?”

  “I smelt them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In the cistern. There was a smell.”

  Owen tried to remember.

  “There was a smell of snake?” he said.

  “More.”

  “Spices,” he said. “Palm oil.”

  He had a very acute sense of smell, which was not always an advantage in Egypt. He tried to conjure back the smells in the cistern. The air had been trapped, he had smelt something distinctly. Snake, he could remember, anyone who had ever kept a snake, even a humble grass snake, knew how the smell clung to your hands, and there in the cistern the smell—sour, acid—had been very pronounced. But what else?

  She held out her arm to him.

  “Smell,” she said.

  It brought back to him the smells in the cistern, pungent, spicy.

  “Ointment,” she said. “You make it from snake fat. Snake fat is the base and then you add to it various spices and other oils. But the main thing is the venom.”

  “It contains venom?”

  “Venom of cobra. You also take it internally. There is a drink called teryaq, where the venom is mixed with the juice and rind of limes. You take it in small, very small quantities, but you take it every day.”

  “It gives you protection?”

  “So they say.”

  “And your father has been giving it to you?”

  “Yes. But he is not supposed to. It is for the Rifa’i only.”

  “But, Jalila,” said Owen, thinking, “I do not understand. You say you smelt the men?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this was the smell?”

  “Yes. I smelt it in the cistern. The air holds the smell. I knew at once that someone else had been there.”

  “But, Jalila, you yourself—”

  “I know. But this was different. You see—I should not tell you, it is a secret, it belongs to the Rifa’i—the Rifa’i take it every year. Both the drink and the ointment. They go away for a month—that is where your own snake catcher is, he is not visiting his son, that was just an excuse—they go away for a month, and they take the ointment and the drink every day for a week, and then they have to lie and see there are no ill effects. And they work on things of the spirit. Then they come back ready to do their work. And after they come back, for a week or two the smell is fresh, and—”

  “And that was the smell you smelt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fresh?”

  She nodded.

  “My own smell, it is not fresh, because my father, he does not do it properly. He does not know the exercises. He only knows how to prepare the ointment and the teryaq. I wear the ointment all the time, the drink I take three times a year.”

  “That is too much.”

  “I take it in very small doses. A Rifa’i takes a thimbleful. I just cover the bottom of the thimble.”

  “And in the cistern it was—not your smell?”

  “It was fresh.”

  “Whoever it was had been treated recently?”

  “Within the last two weeks.”

  “And was a snake catcher?”

  “One of the Rifa’i. Yes, effendi.”

  ***

  “You needn’t worry about Demerdash,” Zeinab said. “At least, not about his marrying me. He thinks I’m a whore.”

  “Whence has sprung this revelation?”

  “He read it in the newspaper.”

  “Al-Lewa?”

  Zeinab nodded.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “One whore I can cope with,” said Zeinab, “especially if it happens to be me. It’s the other one I’m worried about.”

  “There isn’t another one.”

  “What about the one in your bed?”

  “That’s the same one, I think.”

  “Only this time it was her bed?”

  “Not even her appartement. She wanted to meet me.”

  “She certainly believes in making her meetings interesting. I suppose you will tell me you went there in the cause of duty?”

  “Of work, yes. She’s the wife of the man I told you about; that Greek, Philipides.”

  “Isn’t one man enough for her?”

  “She wanted to intercede for him.”

  “You swallowed that?”

  Owen hesitated.

  “I’m not sure. She seemed very passionate.” This, unfortunately, was a singularly ill-chosen word and it was some time before Zeinab could be persuaded to calm down.

  “It’s me they’re after,” he said eventually. “It’s just that you’re tied to me, for better or for worse. And, talking of for better or for worse—”

  Zeinab always liked him asking her to marry him. It was reassuring; and although she remained in a state of chronic indecision about her answer, considering the matter was very agreeable and tended to put her into a softer mood.

  “At least,” she said kindly, “the competition has now been reduced.”

  “Demerda
sh, you mean?”

  “Yes. If there ever was a suit, it has now been withdrawn. He has denounced me to my father.”

  “What’s it got to do with him?”

  “A lot, he thinks. He is concerned about the possible damage to my father’s reputation. In fact, he’s rather more concerned about that than he is about the damage to mine.”

  “Your father’s reputation is a matter for your father, I would have thought.”

  “Well, no. Not if he is to return to the political fold. Not if he is to be seen as a member of the ‘Government-in-Waiting’.”

  “Government-in-Waiting?”

  “That’s how Demerdash sees it, apparently. Things have reached such a pretty pass, he says, immorality and materialism everywhere, that it’s only a question of time before the Khedive dismisses his existing Ministers and looks around him for new ones who can regenerate the country. And when he looks, who will he see? A group of dedicated, experienced men, whose loyalty he can count on, men in whom the country will have confidence, men of standing, Pashas—”

  “Pashas?”

  “Yes. None of this nonsense about democracy. That’s where it all went wrong, when politicians started thinking of themselves as professionals and everyone else started thinking of themselves as politicians. It opened the gates of self-interest. Statesmen, though, are not politicians. They are above all that. Their concern is only for their country—”

  “Your father? Demerdash?” said Owen incredulously.

  “And the Khedive. What is wanted is a return to the old order, the old ways of doing things, the way it was before the British got here and the Nationalists started uprising, before all the rot set in.”

  “And your father believes all that?”

  “Of course not. But—he’s a politician, or was a politician, and, once a politician always a politician. You’re always awaiting, if not exactly expecting, the call. Who knows? It could come again. And if it does, he doesn’t want to be left out.”

  “So he listens to Demerdash?”

  “Let’s say he’s more concerned about my morals than you might think.”