The Snake Catcher's Daughter Read online

  “I have to purify myself. No sex beforehand and none for a month afterwards—”

  “A month!” said Selim, aghast.

  “At least. You’ll just have to ask Leila.”

  “It’s the wrong time of the month for her.”

  “Oh dear,” said Aisha.

  ***

  The city drooped in the heat. From about midmorning the streets were deserted. Even the Ataba-el-Khadra, the square where most of Cairo’s tram routes terminated, and which was normally bustling with people, seemed empty. The drivers of the trams clanged their bells half-heartedly, and departed half empty. No one wished to travel if they could avoid it.

  The tourist season was at an end now and outside the big hotels the ranks were full of arabeahs. Their drivers dozed in the shade beneath their vehicles and did not even bother to look for custom. The donkey boys below the hotel terraces played endless games with sticks and white stones. Their donkeys slept on their feet. Even in sleep their tails twitched continuously against the flies.

  During the season, the street in front of the main European hotels was crowded with hawkers selling everything from souvenirs of the tombs to dirty postcards. Now all the hawkers had gone, as had the tumblers, and acrobats, the musicians and the people with performing monkeys. Only a solitary, blind snake charmer remained. Hearing Owen approach, he began to play on his flute. The snake rose slowly from its basket.

  Did snakes have ears? Owen wondered. He couldn’t remember ever having noticed any. He couldn’t see any on this one, either. Perhaps they were sunk in or something? He would have liked to have looked more closely, but then again, he wasn’t sure he wanted to look too closely. His friend the snake catcher had said they always removed the poison fangs before selling them on but Owen didn’t want to be the first to find an exception.

  “Have they got ears?” he asked the snake charmer.

  The charmer stopped in mid-trill.

  “Ears?” he said incredulously. “Of course not!”

  “Well, then, how do they hear the music?”

  “Look, are you trying to catch me out?” said the snake charmer angrily, blaring a short blast on his flute.

  The snake’s head stopped its rhythmic swinging and hung in the air. It certainly seemed to be responding to the music; but perhaps there was some other cue it was responding to? The old man’s swaying, for instance? Or perhaps vibration was picked up in a different way.

  The charmer stopped playing and the snake returned to its basket. The old man replaced the lid crossly and stumped away. Owen would have liked to have asked him more questions but this was clearly not the occasion. He would have to ask someone else. His own snake catcher, for instance. Or perhaps that girl.

  He had been thinking about the snakes as he had been walking along. Because that was the bit that needed explanation. He could understand what had happened at the Zzarr. They hadn’t wanted McPhee to see the ceremony so they had drugged him. But why put him in the cistern with the snakes? Were snakes something to do with the Zzarr? Had some religious significance, perhaps?

  There was only one way to find out. He wasn’t a McPhee, interested in ceremony for its own sake, nor did he wish to do a McPhee, poke his nose in where he wasn’t wanted. But he was beginning to feel that a lot of the questions he was asking could only be answered by knowing more about what went on at a Zzarr and the best way of finding out was to go to one.

  He could treat it as a reconstruction of the crime, perhaps. Mahmoud, with his background in French law, would like that. The Parquet, steeped in the French judicial system and trained to apply French criminal procedures, were keen on reconstructions. He was not sure, though, that simply going to a Zzarr would come into that category.

  And ought he to be wasting his time on that sort of thing, anyway? Oughtn’t he to be concentrating on the Mahmoud investigation? But the pace in that was set by Mahmoud and he was having to juggle the time he spent on that against the demands of the other things on his plate. Owen reminded himself that he was just an observer; if that.

  No, he had to leave the initiative to Mahmoud. The McPhee business on the other hand was clearly his responsibility and he ought to get on with it. Not because of McPhee himself—they might all be having a peaceful time if it had not been for that blockhead—but because of the danger of it spilling over into communal violence. And was there someone behind it all? It did look a bit like it.

  He decided to go and see the witch.

  Chapter Six

  She was not exactly pleased to see him.

  He had left it, deliberately, as late as he could so that she would not have time to cancel the Zzarr or rearrange it in another place. The outer courtyard was already full of people and there were lamps inside the house. Musicians were tuning up.

  The house was not the one she had used before but very like it. There was both an outer courtyard and an inner one. The men were congregated in the outer courtyard and stopped him when he tried to pass through to the inner one.

  “Can’t do that,” they said. “Women only.”

  “I wish to speak to the Aalima.”

  “She won’t see you.”

  “I think she will. Tell her it’s the Mamur Zapt.”

  There was a sudden hush.

  “All right,” said someone at last, “but she won’t like it. There could be trouble.”

  “There’ll be trouble all right,” said Selim, big and bulky behind Owen, “if you don’t do what the Mamur Zapt says.”

  “I come in peace,” said Owen.

  One of the men called through into the inner courtyard and spoke to a woman there.

  While he was waiting for the Aalima, Owen glanced around him. There were lighted braziers both in the outer courtyard and the inner one and he could smell coffee in both. The men were standing around chatting animatedly. There was something of a party atmosphere.

  “Your wife in there?” said Owen conversationally to a man near him.

  “Daughter. My wife can’t go tonight—her sister’s having a baby—but she said Khadiya had to go. Don’t believe in this sort of thing myself.”

  “Can’t do any harm,” said another man.

  “Can’t it? My wife comes home half-crazed.”

  “She gets over it, though, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, but what’s been going on while she has been out of her mind? That’s what I’d like to know. You don’t know what they get up to.”

  “There aren’t any men there, though, are there?” said Selim wistfully.

  “You don’t always need men.”

  “No?”

  Through the arch Owen could see white forms approaching. He moved to meet them.

  “Who is it who wishes to speak with me?” said the Aalima.

  “Greetings, Mother,” said Owen politely. “May we step aside for a moment?”

  Just beyond the arch a little room gave off the courtyard. He had time only to see that the inner yard was full of women and children in white gowns. The smell of incense hung in the air and on the other side of the ring of firelight cast by a brazier he thought he saw animals stirring restlessly.

  The Aalima led Owen into the room and then turned towards him. She had a large white cowl over her head but was unveiled and there was just enough light from the single oil lamp for him to see her face.

  “Ya salaam!” he said in surprise. He had expected to see an old crone. This woman was at the most in her thirties and had a handsome, classical face.

  “What is it you want?” she said impatiently. “I do nothing wrong.”

  “I’m sure not. Nevertheless, at the last Zzarr you held, wrong things were done.”

  “The Bimbashi? That was nothing to do with me.”

  “I wasn’t thinking just of the Bimbashi. I was thinking of the Copts.”

  “That was nothing to
do with me, either. Or with the Zzarr.”

  “You may be right,” said Owen. “Nevertheless, it was at the Zzarr that something happened to the Bimbashi.”

  “If you have questions to ask,” said the Aalima, “you must put them another time. The Zzarr is about to begin.”

  “You carry on,” said Owen. “I’ll wait.”

  “You can’t wait here,” said the Aalima. “This is for women only.”

  “I won’t interfere.”

  “You cannot stay,” said the woman angrily. “Please go!”

  “I’ll wait.”

  A mastaba, a long stone bench, ran along one side of the room. He sat down.

  The woman bit her lip.

  “I’ll answer your questions tomorrow,” she said.

  “Ah,” said Owen, “but will you be here tomorrow?”

  “I will tell you where I live.”

  “Tell me,” said Owen, “and I will send a man to make sure that that is indeed where you live.”

  “I live on the other side of the Gamaliya,” she protested.

  “We can wait. Or you could begin.”

  She stood there for a moment. Then her foot began to tap angrily.

  “Why are you here?” she burst out furiously. “Why was the Bimbashi here?”

  “The Bimbashi was lured here,” said Owen. “I want to find out why.”

  “That was nothing to do with me! You cannot stay here!”

  Owen settled himself on the mastaba. The Aalima then rushed from the room. Out in the courtyard, women’s voices began to chatter urgently.

  “Are you all right, effendi?” called Selim’s voice.

  Owen got up from the mastaba and went to the door.

  “Yes, thanks,” he called back. Then, seeing Selim standing in the arch, he walked over to him.

  “I’m just waiting to see if she bites,” he said.

  “Bites?” said Selim, intrigued. “Oh, bites. There’ll be plenty of that later.”

  Owen thought Selim might be misunderstanding him. However, the constable pointed beyond the brazier to where the animals were stirring. He could see now that one of them was a large ram.

  “Sacrifice?” he said. “Or a feast?”

  “Both,” said Selim. “The Aalima does pretty well out of it. She gets half of it, you know.”

  “She doesn’t eat half, surely?”

  “No, no. She sells it. Makes a pretty piastre. What with that and the fee everyone pays.”

  “She wouldn’t want to miss out on it, would she?” said Owen thoughtfully.

  “Hello, my lovely!” said Selim to one of the white forms. A group of gowns rushed up and pushed him indignantly into the arch.

  Owen returned to the mastaba.

  After about a quarter of an hour the Aalima appeared.

  “The Zzarr is off!” she said fiercely. “I have asked my women. They say they cannot begin if a man is present.”

  She folded her arms firmly. Owen knew suddenly whom she reminded him of. Not for her beauty but for her manner; the Scottish Matron at the Cairo Hospital.

  “I do not wish to interfere,” he said mildly. “I will stay in this room if you like. That hardly counts as being present, surely?”

  “The Zzarr is off!” said the Aalima, with a triumphant smile.

  Owen shrugged.

  “Very well, then,” he said, rising to his feet. “Tell them to return the animals.”

  The Aalima’s smile faded.

  “What happens to the animals is no business of yours!” she snapped.

  “I’ll tell them,” said Owen, as he went out. “Selim!”

  “Wait! Wait!”

  “I could sit here,” Owen offered. “It wouldn’t really count.”

  The Aalima hesitated.

  “You must not look,” she said, weakening.

  Owen pointed to the wall.

  “If I looked,” he said, “could I see?”

  The Aalima made up her mind.

  “Very well. You can stay. But if you set one foot outside this room,” she said coldly, “the Zzarr stops.”

  ***

  As soon as she had gone, Owen extinguished the lamp. It took a short while for his eyes to get used to the darkness but when they did, he found he could see quite well.

  Moonlight came in through the open door and lit up the white wall opposite him. He took care to stay in the shadow.

  After a moment or two, he heard people outside.

  “He has put the light out,” someone said.

  There was a muttered consultation.

  “Are you still there?” a woman’s voice called out.

  “Of course,” said Owen.

  “Why have you put the light out?”

  “Out of respect.”

  More consultation.

  “There’s no need to do that,” someone said.

  “That’s all right,” said Owen.

  The consultation became agitated.

  “We are going to shut the door,” a voice called out.

  “Please don’t do that. It’s so hot in here.”

  He heard the discussion.

  “It’s a trick!”

  “Yes, but it is hot in there.”

  “We must ask the Aalima,” said someone after a while.

  “It’s too late,” said someone. “It’s beginning.”

  Across the courtyard, in the main building, a timbrel was starting uncertainly.

  “I promise I won’t come out.”

  Dubertas began to catch the rhythm.

  “Very well, then. But mind you don’t! We are putting people to watch!”

  “That is not necessary. But if you wish to—”

  There was a mighty clash of cymbals and then all the instruments were playing together. A voice joined in, wavering, hanging, posing a question or an invitation. Another voice answered.

  The people outside lingered irresolutely, then went away. Someone else came up and sat down just outside the door. The guard had been posted. It was, however, a very small one. About twelve years old, Owen judged.

  There were a lot of children in the courtyard, many of them dressed in white gowns like the Aalima’s companions. As the music caught hold, they began to dance.

  Owen watched for a little while and then moved round the room until he could see out of the doorway. The main activity was going on in a room opposite. It was a long room, probably the mandar’ah, or reception room, which ran the whole length of one side of the inner courtyard. The music was coming from one end, where there was a dais, on which the performers sat. If they were men there would be a screen between them and the rest of the hall.

  The music deepened and other voices joined in, passing the question or invitation from one to another until suddenly they all began to sing together. Owen could still not tell whether they were men or women. Nor could he quite make out the words although some of them seemed familiar. But what language?

  There was movement on the other end of the mandar’ah. He could see the Aalima standing beside what looked like a little table. Round her a ring of white-gowned women was forming. They were holding hands, or holding on to something; a rope, perhaps. The ring began to spin.

  Outside in the courtyard little rings of children began to spin also. It was like ‘Ring-a-ring of roses’ only speeded up.

  He suddenly caught something move just outside the door and hastily slid back on to the mastaba. A figure entered.

  “No light?” said a voice he thought he had heard before.

  “Out of respect,” said Owen.

  “Oh yes!” said the voice ironically. He was sure now he had heard it before.

  The figure stooped. It was holding something out to him.

  “Take and drink,” said the voice.


  “Thank you,” said Owen. He tipped the bowl towards him and let the liquid touch his lips. It was hot and spicy. As far as he could tell, there was no drug in it. This time.

  That other time, McPhee had been sitting out in the courtyard. They had put a chair just beneath the windows. He had been so close, he had told Owen, that he had been intoxicated by the music.

  The music continued, the circles, both inside the house and out in the courtyard, continued to spin. The next time the woman came with the bowl, Owen could see her more clearly.

  “You!” he said in surprise.

  “Why not?” said the snake-catcher’s daughter.

  He held the bowl back for a moment after drinking.

  “Do you always do this?” he asked. “Take the bowl round at the Zzarr?”

  “We all have our parts to play,” she said ambiguously.

  He relinquished the bowl.

  “You are a woman of many parts,” he said.

  He saw the smile in the moonlight. When he had seen her before, beside the snake cistern, he had been too busy to notice her face. It was a rather pretty one. He realized suddenly that none of the women this evening were wearing veils. Some of the more modest ones had pulled their hoods forward over their faces. The Aalima and her acolytes, however, were having none of such half measures. The hoods were thrown back well behind the neck. Girls among girls, Owen supposed.

  The snake-catcher’s daughter seemed disposed to linger.

  “I take the bowl round,” she said, “because I can’t be one of those inside.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  “I’m not clean.”

  He did not understand. Then he remembered what Selim’s wife had said.

  “You haven’t been purified?”

  “I can’t be.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I haven’t been cut.” Seeing that Owen was at a loss, she explained: “When you’re a girl, they cut you. They pare it back. Afterwards, they sew you.”

  “Oh,” said Owen, understanding at last. “Circumcision?”

  “That’s right. Only my father wouldn’t let them do it to me. He said the snakes would notice.”

  Owen wondered how the snakes would notice.

  “The smell,” she said.

  “Do you mind?” he asked.