The Mouth of the Crocodile, page 15
Perhaps the Pasha ought to have chained Leila to a perch! But in a way, he had done.
Actually, it worked the other way, because a lot of wild birds, huge Egyptian kites and a variety of water fowl, from storks downwards, spotted the enclosures and rather fancied them and flew down and settled in them.
There was a purple heron in a little enclosure with a pond. It stood on one leg, like the Dinka (perhaps that was where they got the idea from?), peering down into the water looking for fish. But the pond was only a few inches deep and there didn’t seem to be any fish in it.
Aisha, however, was getting bored and suggested they leave the zoo and go out into the Gizeh; but Jamie had promised his father that he would stay in the zoo until his father got back. ‘You could go out and come back,’ suggested Aisha, but Jamie felt that was cheating. He stayed where he was but Aisha said that she was going to go home. She had achieved her object, which was to ‘case the joint’ and assess its suitability for what she had in mind. She thought it would do very well. They could slip away and lose themselves in one or more of the little pavilions. Once inside they would be safe from discovery. And then they could choose their moment and when the time came slip out of the zoo altogether.
‘If Leila agrees,’ said Jamie.
‘Oh, she’ll agree,’ said Aisha airily.
Jamie wasn’t so sure.
‘Ever since I was a boy,’ said Georgiades, ‘I’ve loved trains. The railway used to run past our house. I would look out of the window and see the trains going past. And do you know what I liked best? It was the engines. When I was small I thought they were Afrit giants. You know, like the ones who put their weapons on the Bab-es-Zuweyla. You know the Bab-es-Zuweyla? No? Well, it’s one of the big gates of Cairo. It goes up and up for ever. That’s because it has the minarets of the Al-Muayyad mosque on its towers. Very tall and thin little columns near the top, just below the minarets. And right up on the tower you see their weapons. They’re supposed to have been put there by the Afrits when they were visiting. Well, I don’t know about that, but how else could they have got up there? Don’t tell me someone climbed up and put them there. It would be no ordinary climb, I can tell you. You’d have to be an Afrit giant to do it.’
None of his listeners had ever been to Cairo and they were enthralled.
‘I didn’t know they had Afrits in Cairo!’ said one of them.
‘Well, they do. Not many. And I don’t know whether they are there now. Maybe they just came and left their weapons, to show they’d been there, and then went home again.’
‘Where is their home?’ asked someone.
‘I was hoping you were going to tell me! Because it’s somewhere down here, in the south. That’s where the magic is, or so they tell me. That’s where it is these days. It’s sort of faded away from the towns in the north. But the evidence is still there.’
‘Well, that’s amazing!’
‘And shall I tell you what I think? I think they have such big mosques – I mean, they really are big – because it takes a lot of mosque to keep the magic under control. You can laugh at me if you like, but that’s what I think.’
They didn’t seem disposed to laugh at him. They didn’t believe in magic or, really, in Afrit giants, but they didn’t disbelieve enough to be quite sure.
‘And when those big engines used to thunder past, I thought they were the giants my mother used to tell me about! Laugh at me if you like, but I was very small.’
‘I’m not laughing,’ said one of the men around him. ‘I thought that, too. When I was small,’ he added hastily.
‘Of course, you get used to them,’ said someone else.
‘Sometimes,’ said Georgiades, ‘at night, when I couldn’t sleep, my mother would take me out of the house for a little walk, so that my father could get to sleep, and she would take me down to the railway, and I would see one of the monsters right up close, coming towards me with its great green eyes – they were the lamps, of course – and I would think it was out to get me!’
The men laughed.
‘I’ll bet you cuddled up to your mother!’ one of them said.
‘I did. And there are times even now, when things go wrong, when I wish I could cuddle up to her again!’
‘It’s like that with all of us.’
‘Although on the whole we prefer to cuddle someone else these days!’
They all laughed.
‘You here for long?’ someone asked.
‘A few days. Really I’m just having a look around to see if it’s worth putting more of an effort here.’
‘Well, if it’s paper you’re selling’ – which was the story Georgiades had told them – ‘there’s plenty of need for that!’
‘They’ll have other suppliers,’ said Georgiades. ‘What I’m really here for is to get the general picture. As you say, though, the way Atbara is growing it’s getting to be big enough to interest us.’
‘Growing all the time,’ one of the men said.
‘It looks to me to be a nice place,’ said Georgiades.
‘But nothing like Cairo.’
‘Not like Cairo, no. And that’s what my wife would have against it. But if you were a young chap starting off …’
They agreed it might be a tempting proposition.
‘Provided you can stand the mosquitoes.’
‘There are mosquitoes in Cairo,’ said Georgiades. ‘But what there is here and there isn’t in Cairo is a lot of space. I went for a walk along the river early this morning, and there were a few people washing themselves but otherwise no one. Of course, you do have crocodiles as well as mosquitoes.’
‘No, we don’t, not these days.’
‘Oh, I had heard you did. Someone told me a man was snatched only the other day.’
‘No, no, no. That was just – well, you know the sort of thing people say. It wasn’t a crocodile that got him, it was just that he went in too deep and couldn’t swim. There’s a ledge on this side of the river and it’s easy to step over it. And that’s what happened.’
‘Well, I am relieved to hear it,’ said Georgiades. ‘Crocodiles I don’t want when I’m having a little stroll beside the river.’
‘There are not many. You don’t see them.’
‘I don’t find that altogether reassuring. I’d prefer to see them than just be walking along and thinking they’re a piece of driftwood and then, bang! Suddenly, they’ve snapped their jaws and you’re inside, and it’s goodbye to you!’
The man laughed. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It hardly ever happens. You’ll be all right.’
‘As a matter of fact,’ said Georgiades. ‘I’ve got a message to deliver to the family. You know, the man who was drowned. Someone in our office knows the family and when he heard I was going down to Atbara, he asked me if I would take a message for him. You know, condolences and that sort of thing. These things are important at a time of bereavement. The family gathers round, if you know what I mean. So I’d like to do it if I can. I suppose you don’t know how I might get in touch with them?’
‘I do,’ said someone. ‘They live in my street. They’ll be glad to hear from someone in the family.’
‘Well, I’m not exactly in the family. The friend of a friend, if you know what I mean. It’s someone in my office. The name of the place comes up, Atbara, or whatever, and they think it will be just round the corner. Mention my name when you see him, that sort of thing. And, of course, you never do see him. Still, I’d like to do something if I can.’
‘They live just up the street from me. I’ll take you there.’
He introduced him as ‘a friend of Suleiman’s’ and so the job was done.
The widow was living with her parents. It was a very small, very ordinary house, and Georgiades was surprised. Wasn’t Sayyid supposed to be ‘a man of substance’? That, according to Owen, was the expression the engine driver had used. Owen had been rather surprised by the expression. What was a man of substance doing washing in the river? Now, having seen the house, he could understand it. There was no separate bathroom, no running water. Everyone appeared to use the pump in the street outside. And that included the whole street. It was commonplace for women to go to a pump for the household’s needs of water. But washing? At times there must have been quite a queue. He could see that people might well have preferred to use the river. All the same … A man of substance? The engine driver must have got it wrong.
‘He was a good man,’ said the father, ‘and we shall miss him.’
‘We would have missed him more,’ said the mother tartly, ‘if he had left a bit more behind him.’
There were undercurrents here.
‘The money went on the funeral, I expect,’ said Georgiades. It was usual for families to spend more on a funeral than they could afford.
‘It was a good funeral,’ agreed the father. ‘I will say that.’
‘So it should have been,’ said Georgiades. ‘Was he not the Pasha’s kinsman?’
‘So he claimed,’ said the mother. ‘But it didn’t do us much good.’
‘Didn’t he do us honour?’ said the daughter. ‘Didn’t he come to the funeral?’
‘If it was an honour,’ said her mother, ‘it was one that didn’t cost him anything!’
‘Shame on you, woman!’ said the father. ‘He showed us respect.’
‘Respect comes cheap,’ said his wife doggedly. ‘When it’s not accompanied by money.’
‘And didn’t the Pasha give any?’
‘No,’ said the mother. ‘Not a millieme!’
‘So you had to pay for everything yourselves?’
‘No. No,’ said the father. ‘We didn’t pay. But others did.’
‘The employers …’ said Georgiades.
‘Don’t make me laugh!’ said the mother.
‘The men in the office,’ said the daughter. ‘They all paid something.’
‘They at least must have respected him,’ said Georgiades.
‘I’m not saying that they didn’t,’ said the mother.
‘They all gave something,’ said the daughter. ‘And that is not always the case!’
‘It was because he had done so much for them,’ said the father.
‘What had he done?’ asked the mother contemptuously.
‘He had put their case,’ said the father.
‘Well, that was nice of him!’ said the mother. ‘And who asked him to do that?’
‘Until he got here, nobody did anything,’ said the daughter. ‘It was left to fools like that Ali.’
‘And where did it get us?’ demanded the mother.
‘It got us a pay rise!’ said the father.
‘A few milliemes!’ said the mother contemptuously. ‘Which didn’t make up for the money they lost when they came out on strike.’
‘You’ve got to do something,’ said the father.
‘Why not try working?’ said the mother. ‘For a change.’
‘I do work!’ said the father hotly. ‘I work hard. And where does it get me?’
‘Work harder!’ said his wife.
The husband spat and turned away.
‘You’ve got me puzzled,’ said Georgiades. ‘Didn’t you say he was kinsman to the Pasha? What is a kinsman of the Pasha doing, telling people to come out on strike?’
‘It was another thing that didn’t cost him anything,’ said the mother. ‘It’s all talk with people like that!’
‘With Sayyid it wasn’t,’ said the daughter. ‘He helped people, and got them to help themselves.’
‘He came in and stirred up trouble. And then he would have moved on, leaving us with the trouble.’
‘He wouldn’t have moved on!’ said the daughter. ‘He was married to me, remember?’
‘He would have moved on. Men like that always do.’
‘Sayyid wasn’t like that!’
‘He might have taken you with him,’ her mother accepted grudgingly.
‘But he didn’t move on,’ said the father. ‘He died. And that’s another thing that needs explaining.’
Less than a mile from Owen’s office at the Place Bab-al-Khalk, along the Sharia Bab-al-Khalk, was the Khedivial School of Justice where all the young lawyers started to learn their trade. They learned other things as well and more than a few of Owen’s British colleagues felt that was where they picked up their seditious ideas. The school was at the corner of the Midan Abdin, Abdin Square, and running down the side of the square was the Abdin Palace where the Khedive resided.
The Midan was, therefore, handy for both the law school and the Palace, and at any hour of the day the tables outside the little cafes were occupied by people with business at either or both. It was where Aisha’s father, Yasin, spent a lot of his time: a sort of lawyers’ Commons.
Sometimes they were waiting for a brief and every so often a suffragi would dash out of the Law School in search of a particular lawyer. At other times, a bell would tinkle and people sitting at the tables would get to their feet and dash inside to whatever committee they were supposed to be supporting. But for a lot of the time bells didn’t tinkle and suffragis didn’t come dashing.
It was where political and legal hangers-on mixed. There was, of course, no dividing line between the two and young lawyers on the make waited there hopefully.
It was a good place for picking up political gossip and Owen often went there for a cup of coffee, although the coffee was not much more reliable than the gossip. Still, he had his contacts.
One of these was an elderly writer named Yacub, who sat at the same table every day and did copying work for the lawyers. Most copying was still done by hand although, as in other parts of Egyptian life, modern technology was beginning to thrust its way in – in this case in the form of the typewriter. Yacub was one of the old sort and disdained such modern aids, sticking to the old, beautiful and extremely slow Arabic handwriting. Nikos despised such men. Owen quite liked it and from time to time would give Yacub something of his to copy. As a favourite customer Yacub would do it while Owen was waiting, which gave Owen an excuse to linger and pick up gossip.
Yacub had been sitting there for a long time and there was little about the lawyers that he didn’t know.
‘Effendi!’
‘Greetings, Yacub!’
He laid a piece of paper before him. ‘Two piastres, two hours!’ said Yacub.
Which was not cheap but a fair price as these things went, especially if you were picking up other things at the same time.
‘I have just made an acquaintance,’ said Owen.
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Yasin al-Jawad.’
‘Do I know him?’
‘He has a daughter.’
‘Oh, yes. I know him.’
Owen laughed. ‘I’ll bet you do,’ he said.
‘He is a lawyer,’ said Yacub. ‘But not much at the Parquet.’
Owen nodded. ‘At the Palace, rather.’
‘A political lawyer,’ said Yacub.
‘Who probably doesn’t bring you much work. Which is why it may be worth your while talking to me a little.’
‘It is always a pleasure to talk to you.’
‘He is very much a Cairo man,’ said Owen. ‘Yet it was not always thus. At one time he was over in the Red Sea Hills.’
‘Yes,’ said Yacub. ‘I remember.’
‘How did that come about?’
‘He was too interested in politics.’
‘So he thought it was prudent to disappear for a while?’
‘He didn’t think it was prudent. His father did.’
‘And his father was able to work it so that he would be transferred?’
‘To some less conspicuous place.’
‘Where better, from that point of view, than the Red Sea Hills?’
‘His father, and his friends, thought that it would be better to get right out of Egypt.’
‘Even as far as the Sudan? Was there any other reason for him to go to the Sudan?’
‘I don’t know. One of his father’s friends had a relative there, perhaps.’
‘Was this relative a politician too?’
‘I cannot remember. It was a long time ago. But I think, yes, perhaps.’
‘Because, you see, I wonder how he came to come back? The Red Sea Hills is not a place you come back from. You usually stay there.’
‘He did stay there. For several years. And then the friends were able to work a transfer.’
‘Powerful friends.’
‘So-so.’
‘But at any rate, what had sent him there was now forgotten about.’
‘That is so, yes.’
‘Can you give me any names?’
Yacub considered. ‘I do not think so,’ he said at last.
‘This was a long time ago,’ said Owen. ‘Are they still so powerful?’
Yacub considered again. ‘They are not as powerful as they were.’
‘They were powerful enough to get him out of the way then. But not powerful enough to raise him further?’
‘Some men’s concerns are disappointing.’
‘He is a gifted man,’ said Owen. ‘Surely he looked for a promising career?’
‘I am sure he did.’
‘But was it not so promising?’
Yacub spread his hands. ‘It happens to us all,’ he said. ‘I have seen so many.’
‘So many Mamur Zapts, too, perhaps?’
‘I have seen many Mamur Zapts,’ said Yacub. ‘Some of them remain promising.’
‘Deceptively so.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Yacub.
‘So you won’t give me names?’
‘Alas, no.’
‘Even if it was rewarded?’
Yacub shook his head. ‘I am afraid not,’ he said, and passed Owen the sheets of paper. Owen took them and passed him some money.
‘This is more than I asked.’
‘It is an expression of hope.’
Yacub sighed. ‘Hope deserves a reward,’ he said. ‘But it is only a little reward. So it will be only a little information. Names, I will not give.’
