The Camel of Destruction Read online

  ‘I don’t agree with you,’ said the Minister sharply. ‘And isn’t it anticipating the agenda? I thought we were going to discuss this.’

  ‘Captain Owen is not attending as a participant member,’ said Paul smoothly. ‘He has observer status only.’

  ‘That’s precisely the trouble,’ said Abdul Filmi. ‘This committee’s full of observers. No one is actually doing anything.’

  ‘There, I think, you’re failing to anticipate the agenda, Mr. Filmi,’ said Paul. ‘Shall we begin?’

  The subject of the meeting was the current difficulties of the Agricultural Bank. The Bank had been set up a few years before to address the problems of Egypt’s cotton-producing fellahin, or peasants. Chief among these was their chronic indebtedness.

  They borrowed to buy the land in the first place; they borrowed to buy seed and fertilizer; and they borrowed in order to live when their returns fell short of their costs. The trouble was that they borrowed from local moneylenders at rates of interest so high as to make it virtually impossible for them ever to repay.

  The Agricultural Bank was intended to cut through all this. It lent only to Egyptians (the foreign bankers were not too happy about this), it lent only to fellahin and not to rich landowners (the Minister was not too happy about this) and it lent at low rates of interest (none of the bankers were happy about this). However, it worked.

  For a time. But then international cotton prices fell, the boom came to an end, interest rates rose and everyone was in trouble. The Bank was in trouble.

  ‘Over-lent,’ said one of the foreign bankers.

  ‘Under-secured,’ said another.

  And so, only more so, were the fellahin. A few weeks before, the Bank had started foreclosing on its loans.

  ‘Outrageous!’ fumed Filmi.

  ‘Devastating!’ murmured the politicians.

  But fortunately the fellahin did not have votes.

  ‘A financial disaster!’ said the British, who were there, after all, to help the Egyptians avoid financial disasters.

  The Bank, in their view, was underfunded. This was not the view of the foreign bankers, however. Nor was it the view of Abdul Aziz Filmi. The money was there, all right. Or should have been there.

  ‘Where has it gone?’

  ‘Costs of the recession,’ said the Governor of the Bank of Egypt.

  ‘Administrative expenses,’ said the Adviser.

  ‘Inefficiency and waste,’ said the overseas bankers.

  ‘Corruption,’ said Abdul Aziz Filmi.

  Chapter Three

  ‘And what exactly was the nature of Mr. Fingari’s work?’ asked Owen.

  The Under-Secretary, behind his desk, began to shuffle papers.

  ‘His work? Oh yes. Well, very important. This is an important Department, Captain Owen. New, but important. Our budget does not really reflect…Of course, you can’t do much with £20,000 (Egyptian). Not if you have to cover the whole country. And not with something like Agriculture. But it’s an important Department.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘We do our best. Of course, with the Khedivial Agricultural Society—’

  ‘The Khedivial Agricultural Society?’

  ‘Yes. A very vigorous body. Set up by the Khedive himself a few years ago. With the help of some of your own distinguished compatriots.’

  ‘The Society comes under your Department, does it?’

  ‘Oh no, no. Quite independent. Private, you might say. And vigorous, very vigorous.’

  ‘It promotes discussion, I take it?’

  ‘Oh yes. Very ardent discussion, yes. And also—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It sells.’

  ‘It engages in business on its own account?’

  ‘Yes. It sells seed. It has an arrangement with the Agricultural Bank.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Yes. And—and services, too. It sells services. Veterinary services, pest control…Excellent services, Captain Owen. Of course, we don’t quite have the money ourselves…’

  ‘What is the relationship between the Society and your Department?’

  ‘Oh, good. Very good.’

  ‘Yes, but what does the Department do that the Society does not do?’

  The Under-Secretary regarded him thoughtfully.

  ‘Manure,’ he said.

  ‘The Department supplies manure?’

  ‘No, no. The Society does that. Too. That’s another service they offer. And fertilizer.’

  ‘But then what does the Department do?’

  ‘Paperwork,’ said the Under-Secretary. ‘Yes, paperwork.’

  ‘I see. And that’s what Mr. Fingari was doing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘May I see his office?’

  The Under-Secretary summoned a minion to conduct Owen along the corridor but then, unusually, accompanied Owen himself. On the way they acquired several other minions.

  The office was of the sort common in the Ministries; high-ceilinged, because of the heat, dark because of the heavy shutters, and oddly green because of the light filtering through the green slats of the shutters. From the ceiling was suspended a huge fan.

  Owen glanced at the papers on the desk.

  ‘All to do with the Agricultural Bank,’ he said.

  ‘Well, of course; he was the Department’s representative.’

  ‘Was there anything special that he was engaged with?’

  ‘No,’ said the Under-Secretary, ‘no, I don’t think so.’

  ‘I was under the impression that there was.’

  ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  ***

  The Minister and the minions departed, leaving Owen alone in Osman Fingari’s office. He went through the desk systematically and then began on the filing cabinets. They were half empty.

  He went back to Osman Fingari’s desk and sat down. A turbaned head appeared round the door.

  ‘Would the Effendi care for some coffee?’ asked Abdul Latif.

  The Effendi certainly would.

  Abdul Latif disappeared and then came back with a tray on which was set a small brass cup and a large brass coffeepot.

  ‘This was how Fingari effendi liked it.’

  Owen lifted the lid of the pot. Turkish. He poured some out.

  ‘Sugar in the right-hand drawer,’ said Abdul Latif.

  ‘I see you are a man who knows his Effendi’s ways.’

  ‘I did his office,’ said Abdul Latif proudly.

  The dramatic events of the past week had seen a great rise in his status in the orderly room.

  ‘And very well, too,’ said Owen, looking around.

  ‘I like to keep on top of things,’ said Abdul Latif modestly, pouncing on a spot of coffee on the tray with his duster.

  ‘And do you also bring the mail?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘What a weight to carry!’ said Owen, shaking his head.

  ‘A weight to carry?’ said Abdul Latif, surprised.

  ***

  ‘But what did he actually do?’ asked Owen.

  He was talking now to one of Osman Fingari’s colleagues.

  ‘The Bank—’

  ‘All his time?’

  ‘Preparation—’

  ‘All his time?’

  The man capitulated.

  ‘Perhaps he wasn’t very busy,’ he admitted.

  ‘Are you all like that? Not very busy?’

  ‘We should be so lucky!’ said the man bitterly. ‘There are only twenty of us and we have to cover the whole country. They’ve got more in the Agricultural Society!’

  ‘Then how is it that Fingari wasn’t?’

  ‘Perhaps—he’s joined us only recently, perhaps he’s not had time to pick things up—’

  ‘H
ow recently?’

  ‘Six months. Before that he was at Public Works.’

  ‘He came to you from Public Works?’

  ‘Yes. He was brought in specially. So that he could represent us on the Bank. To be fair, he had the background—’

  ‘Banking?’

  ‘Control of public expenditure.’

  ‘And none of you have that background?’

  ‘Not to the same extent. Public Works is large. We are—small.’

  ‘What did he do with the rest of his time? When he wasn’t working on the Bank?’

  ‘I don’t know. None of us know. He kept himself to himself.’

  ‘Did anyone work with him?’

  ‘No. His work was, as I have said, very specialized.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t know anything about these negotiations he’s been engaged in?’

  ‘Negotiations? I didn’t know he had been engaged in any. What sort of negotiations?’

  ‘I’m like you: don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘He’s certainly been going out a lot lately,’ said the man thoughtfully. ‘But we thought—you know, lunch and all that sort of thing—’

  ‘You don’t know any of the people he used to meet?’

  The man shook his head.

  ‘We didn’t really like to ask him. Thought they might be people he’d worked with when he was at Public Works.’

  ‘No names?’

  ‘They’d be in his desk diary. We’re supposed to record—’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to be here,’ said Owen, searching.

  ‘Isn’t it? It ought to be. Ya Abdul!’

  Abdul Latif appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Fingari effendi’s Green Book: have you seen it?’

  ‘It should be on the desk,’ said Abdul Latif, coming into the room.

  ***

  The Ministry of Agriculture was, as it happened, in the same building as the Ministry of Public Works, occupying part of a corridor on the top floor at the back, which indicated, in the subtle way of the Civil Service, its status as a parvenu.

  The building was in the Ministerial Quarter, the Kasr-el-Dubara, which was itself in the same state of incompleteness as the rest of Cairo. Half of it consisted of grubbed up gardens and abandoned foundations, a memento of the recent landboom, in which the part on the river bank was to have been developed as a fashionable residential area.

  The other half of it had already been developed with imposing new Government buildings, set out in French-style ornamental parks with formal flowerbeds and cool promenades of trees.

  Owen had intended taking to the promenades but as he came round the corner of the building he saw in front of him the handsome, if rather stolid, edifice of the Ministry of Religious Endowments. Since he was in the neighbourhood…

  ‘I would like to check the details of a waqf I am interested in,’ he told the clerk at the Reception desk inside. ‘It’s in the Derb Aiah area.’

  The clerk, a Nikos in embryo, looked at Owen sniffily.

  ‘We do not classify them by areas,’ he said.

  ‘How do you classify them?’

  ‘By names.’

  ‘Shawquat.’

  ‘What sort of name is that?’

  ‘It’s the name of the beneficiary.’

  ‘Ah, we don’t classify by the names of beneficiaries. We classify by the name of the original endower.’

  ‘Mightn’t he be named Shawquat, too?’

  ‘He might; but then, again, he might not.’

  ‘Try under Shawquat,’ said Owen.

  The clerk took his time.

  ‘There are several Shawquats.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll look at them all.’

  ‘The files would be too heavy to bring.’

  ‘I’ll look at them where they are.’

  Reluctantly, the clerk took him into a back room, very large, occupying the whole of one floor of the vast building.

  ‘Thank you. How are they organized?’

  ‘In files.’

  Owen considered whether to pick the clerk up, shake him and drop him. But this was not one of the Ministries with an English Adviser, it was a Ministry which, in view of the nature of its business, history mixed with religion, the English thought it politic to leave alone. So he didn’t.

  ‘Arranged alphabetically by the initial letter of the name?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The clerk went off. As he disappeared behind the stacks Owen heard a voice say softly in Arabic:

  ‘Is that courteous?’

  ‘It is only a foreign effendi—’

  ‘Then that is worse. For in that case you are representing not just the Ministry but also our country: and what will the foreign effendi think of a country whose servants behave as you have just been doing?’

  ‘I said nothing—’

  ‘I heard what you said. And now I will tell you what you will do. You will go round and you will collect all the files that the effendi needs and you will take them to him.’

  ‘I—’ began the clerk, but then stopped abruptly.

  He began to bring Owen files at speed.

  Owen went round the stack to thank his benefactor. He found a young Egyptian, smartly dressed, not in the usual dark suit of the office effendi, but in a light, white, French-style cotton suit and a red tie exactly chosen to go with his red tarboosh.

  He was sitting at a table reading one of the files but looked up politely as Owen approached. His eyes opened wide in surprise and he jumped up.

  ‘Mon cher ami!’

  ‘Mahmoud!’

  ‘I didn’t realize—’

  They embraced warmly in the Arab fashion.

  ‘But why,’ demanded Mahmoud, disengaging himself, ‘did you put up with him?’

  ‘Well, I thought, this is a special Ministry—’

  ‘But why did you think that?’

  ‘The religious connection—’

  ‘But you mustn’t think that! It is just a Ministry like any other. You mustn’t expect less than you would from other Departments. That is to insult it.’

  ‘It’s not that, exactly—’

  ‘But this is important! If you do not apply the same standards, is it because you think this is only an Egyptian Department, it’s not a proper one?’

  ‘No, no. Certainly not! Look, it’s not worth bothering about.’

  ‘But it is, it is,’ cried Mahmoud excitedly. ‘You put up with it because you say, “They are only Egyptians, you can’t expect anything better;” and that is bad, that is to wrong us, to insult us—’

  ‘I don’t do anything of the sort—’

  ‘It is to apply a double standard, one for the English, another for the Egyptians!’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Mahmoud fiercely, ‘would you expect the same service if you were in England?’

  It was a long time since Owen had been in England. He considered the matter honestly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said firmly.

  ‘Yes?’

  Mahmoud stopped, astonished.

  ‘They’re the same the whole world over.’

  ‘They are?’

  ‘They are.’

  ‘Well…’ said Mahmoud, deflating. ‘Well…All the same,’ he shot out as the unfortunate clerk scurried past, ‘the service here needs improving!’

  They were old friends and had, indeed, worked together on several important cases. Mahmoud was a lawyer, a rising star of the Parquet.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Owen.

  ‘Working up a case,’ said Mahmoud. ‘It starts tomorrow.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were an expert on waqfs.’

  ‘I’m not. That’s why I’m going over it again before I get in court.�
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  ‘Can I get some free legal advice? No, I’ll tell you what, I’ll pay for it. I’ll take you out to lunch.’

  ‘You don’t need to pay for it,’ said Mahmoud, ‘but lunch would be a pleasure.’

  They agreed to meet at one and for the rest of the morning Owen worked on the files the clerk had brought him, after which he was little the wiser.

  ‘It is complicated,’ Mahmoud admitted over lunch, ‘but basically what you want to know is: can a waqf be set aside?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘Well, you tell me. Public interest?’

  Mahmoud shook his head.

  ‘Not a chance. There is an issue of public interest, since the endowment was established for the benefit of local children. But if the endowment has merely been transferred, the issue does not arise.’

  ‘If it’s a developer, he’s going to close down the school.’

  ‘You’d have to wait until it was clear that was what he was going to do.’

  ‘It would be too late, then. He’d have demolished the building.’

  ‘It wouldn’t matter anyway because he could always say he was going to open another school somewhere else in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘What about the argument that the relative didn’t know what he was doing when he sold the benefit? The Widow Shawquat said he was senile.’

  ‘She’d have to be able to prove that.’

  ‘I don’t know that she’d be very good at proving anything. Not if it came to a real legal wrangle with lawyers. The other side would be able to afford good lawyers and she wouldn’t.’

  ‘I’d do it myself,’ said Mahmoud, ‘only I’m going to be tied up for at least two months. This is a big case.’

  ‘Oh heavens, no; I wasn’t dreaming of involving you to that extent. In fact, I wasn’t really thinking of involving the Widow Shawquat if I didn’t have to. I was wondering if I could appeal myself.’

  ‘As Mamur Zapt?’ Mahmoud frowned. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you. The Ministry is nationalist, not in my way but in a different way. They would be prejudiced from the start.’

  ‘What do I do, then? Someone’s got to formally appeal, presumably?’

  ‘Yes. But it ought to be someone who would impress the Ministry of Religious Endowments. Someone preferably of religious weight. And that, cher ami,’ said Mahmoud drily, ‘is not you.’