The Spoils of Egypt

by Michael Pearce

  ‘Since I got landed with this business about export licensing.’

  This time it was Francesca’s eyebrows which were raised.

  ‘You didn’t tell me about this,’ she said.

  ‘There are lots of things he doesn’t tell people about,’ said Zeinab.

  Both women grew cool, and not just towards each other. In an effort to improve matters, Owen talked to Francesca about the opera they had both seen at Alexandria. Zeinab became even cooler.

  Owen felt obliged to explain how they had come to meet at the Opera.

  ‘By the way,’ said Francesca, ‘have you reached a decision yet on the statue?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘The person we would use has a studio here in Cairo. Would it help you to see the sort of work he does?’

  ‘That’s not really the point, actually—’ Owen began, but Zeinab cut in.

  ‘I am against statues,’ she said.

  ‘But they can be so beautiful!’ Francesca cried.

  ‘Not in Egypt they can’t,’ said Zeinab.

  Francesca shrugged.

  ‘But surely Egypt is looking outwards now? Opera itself—’

  ‘Egypt is for the Egyptians,’ said Zeinab and moved towards the stairs.

  Francesca put her hand on Owen’s arm.

  ‘Do come and see!’ she said. ‘Vittorio would be so pleased. He’s in the Sharia el Nazdafni. I’ll meet you there at ten o’clock outside the mosque.’

  Zeinab was silent for the rest of the evening; silent but stormy.

  ***

  ‘Dante!’ said Vittorio next morning. ‘Ah, Dante! It would not be work, it would be homage.’

  His studio was on the roof of an old, crumbling house and opened, as did many of the houses, on to a small roof garden. There were blocks of limestone everywhere. Beyond a trellis covered with heavy swathes of bean flowers, the tips of an angel’s wings rose incongruously.

  ‘Much of my work is funerary,’ said Vittorio sadly, following Owen’s eye. ‘I don’t get many commissions. Were it not for Francesca—’

  ‘It is a shame,’ said Francesca, ‘because his work is really very good. Let me show you.’

  She took Owen back into the studio and showed him several half-finished fragments rather like the ape-god he had seen in the Customs House at Alexandria.

  ‘Truly lovely,’ she said, running her hand admiringly over the head and shoulders of a cat which was emerging from the still untrimmed block below.

  ‘And what about this?’

  It was a remarkable sculpture of the Vulture Goddess Mut, with spread, delicately-feathered wings and crooked, powerful talons holding in them the plumes of Upper and Lower Egypt. The detail was amazing.

  ‘I flatter myself,’ said Vittorio proudly, ‘that you couldn’t tell the difference.’

  ‘The Dante, though, would be an original,’ said Francesca.

  ‘Yes,’ Vittorio asserted. ‘I have thought about it a little. Just on the off-chance, you know. Let me show you some of my sketches.’

  ‘Very fine,’ said Owen after a while, handing them back to him. ‘I am, of course, no expert but even I can see—’

  ‘Put this up,’ said Francesca passionately, ‘and in years to come people will say this is one of the treasures of Alexandria!’

  ‘The treasures of Egypt, I see,’ said Owen to Vittorio, ‘are not all in the past!’

  Vittorio bowed.

  ‘I do not understand,’ he said sadly, ‘why people should object. An artist makes with respect. How can what is made with respect be seen as insult or blasphemy?’

  ‘Different people see things in different ways,’ said Owen neutrally.

  And how was he going to explain this visit to Zeinab?

  ***

  As Owen was walking back to his office he met one of his old friends, last seen proffering ushapti images outside the Continental Hotel.

  ‘You still here?’ said Owen, surprised.

  The last tourists had departed. The summer heat had finally closed down on the city and the Season was over. There were fewer porters now outside the great hotels. Many of them had returned to their homes in Upper Egypt for their annual visit, bringing gifts for their wives and children. The great bazaars were almost empty.

  ‘I shall go home next week,’ said his friend.

  ‘Sold all your stock?’

  The man grimaced.

  ‘Some of it. I should have come up here earlier, before the others. I stayed on the boats too long.’

  They said that every year. The fact was, when they moved, they all moved together, like a flock of starlings. They all came together and left together.

  That was strange. The flock had, in fact, already departed, returning to the south to replenish their energies and their stock for next season.

  ‘You’re a bit late, aren’t you?’

  ‘I had some things to do.’

  ‘A wedding, perhaps?’

  Some of the pedlars were like sailors: they liked a wife in every port.

  The man laughed.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘not this time. There are some things I have to do for the Pasha.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Owen. ‘You are rising in the world, then?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘Does not the Pasha have his own men?’

  ‘For most things. For some things, though, he likes to make use of the people from Der el Bahari.’

  ‘And what sort of things are they?’

  ‘Ah. Specialist things.’

  Owen would have liked to have known what they were but he knew better than to ask.

  ‘I was at Der el Bahari last week,’ he said. ‘Had I known that I would run into you I would have asked after your family.’

  The man bowed acknowledgement.

  ‘It is a long time to be separated from them.’

  ‘Were you not tempted to work at the dig, too?’

  ‘No. That work is too close to working in the fields to suit me.’

  ‘Profitable, though.’

  The man shrugged. ‘You have to work hard. Besides, I don’t like working for the American.’

  ‘The accidents?’

  ‘Accidents? Oh no. They were to people from outside the village.’

  ‘Isn’t it the work? Dangerous?’

  ‘No!’ the man scoffed. ‘It wasn’t that at all!’

  ‘What was it, then?’

  ‘They were asking for it, weren’t they?’

  ‘Were they?’

  Owen probed but the man suddenly shut up like a clam. After a little while they both laughed.

  ‘You Der el Bahari people stick together, don’t you?’ said Owen.

  ‘We have to.’

  Owen took this to be a reference to the illicit traffic the villagers engaged in.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘from what I saw, there’s plenty more stock left for you.’

  He told the man about the mummies.

  ‘Oh yes,’ the man said. ‘There are hundreds of those. It’s the smaller objects you can’t lay your hands on these days. In my grandfather’s time you could still do all right. Lamps, jars, ushabti, even the occasional necklace. But that’s all disappeared long ago.’

  ‘And if there’s something big, I suppose it’s the archæologists who find it.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. We know our way around. Those archæologists are digging blind. Doesn’t make much sense, in my view. They’re not going about it properly.’

  ‘The wrong methodology?’ murmured Owen.

  ‘What’s that? All I know is, I wouldn’t set about it the way they do. No, that’s not the problem. The problem from our point of view is not finding, but selling. If you let anyone know you’ve got your hands on something big, the
next moment the Government comes and takes it away from you. Or maybe it’s the Pasha, if you don’t look out. Any way there’s nothing in it for us.’

  ‘It’s a hard life,’ said Owen.

  ‘It certainly is. And unfair, too. We’ve been doing all right for centuries and then along comes some new Government or other and mucks it up. It’s unjust, that’s what it is. The Government’s either on your back or in your pocket.’

  ‘I can see you’ve got problems.’

  ‘The lengths you have to go to!’ said the man from Der el Bahari.

  ***

  ‘No,’ said Zeinab.

  This was serious. Normally, Owen, mad dog that he was, dispensed with a siesta and worked right through. Today, though, it was so hot that it was impossible. Even indoors it was like an oven. The fans blew air at you that was like heat from an exhaust. So at lunchtime he had gone to Zeinab’s. Zeinab, however, was not in the mood.

  ‘You come to me as if I were a harem,’ she said. ‘A harem of one, perhaps—you English are peculiar—but still a harem. Why don’t you go to that Francesca of yours?’

  ‘She’s not mine. You’re mine.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ said Zeinab. ‘And if I am, it’s probably not going to be for much longer.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s spelt e-n-d,’ said Zeinab.

  ‘What nonsense!’ said Owen, trying to put his arm round her. She shrugged it off. ‘You’re not seeing things in proportion.’

  ‘What was the proportion you had in mind?’ asked Zeinab. ‘Fifty-fifty? Or seventy to Francesca and thirty to me?’

  ‘For God’s sake!’

  This time he did succeed in getting his arm round her.

  ‘It’s no good,’ said Zeinab, suddenly tearful. ‘My father has been.’

  Owen sat back.

  ‘What’s he got to do with it?’

  ‘He thinks it’s time I got married.’

  ‘Married!’

  Owen sat back still further. ‘He’s never bothered about that sort of thing before!’

  ‘It’s not that. He thinks that, well, there may be a use for me.’

  Light dawned.

  ‘Marbrouk?’

  Zeinab nodded.

  ‘Suddenly they are great friends. And he wishes to cement the alliance.’

  ‘With you as the cement? Not likely!’

  ‘It is quite normal between great families. And Marbrouk belongs to a great family. He is a cousin of the Khedive. If he murdered about sixty of his relatives, which of course he is quite capable of doing, I might find myself wife to the Khedive.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’

  ‘One of the wives of the Khedive,’ said Zeinab, gratified. ‘Which is, admittedly, a drawback.’

  Owen could see it all. That wily, conniving Nuri was quite capable of using his daughter as a pawn in some political game he was playing. Marbrouk and Nuri! Christ, they might be planning to take over the Government!

  ‘We’re not having this!’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know what it’s got to do with you,’ said Zeinab, a trifle smugly.

  ‘It’s got plenty to do with me,’ said Owen. ‘I’m in love with you, aren’t I?’

  ‘Francesca.’

  ‘She’s not in it.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Zeinab. ‘I thought she might be a consolation when I’m gone.’

  ‘You’re not going,’ said Owen.

  Zeinab, enjoying this, curled her legs up under her on the divan.

  ‘It would be a good match,’ she said dreamily. ‘He is a millionaire. And you still have some way to go. Nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand pounds, to be exact. He is, of course, older than you. But then, his place in society is already established and his wife could expect to take her position beside him—’

  ‘Not in Egypt she couldn’t.’

  ‘True. But then my position at the moment is not exactly one to be proud of, is it?’

  ‘There’s more to life than position,’ said Owen stiffly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Zeinab, suddenly serious. ‘I have been reflecting on that. Has it ever occurred to you that I might wish for more from life than to be mistress of a junior Captain in the British Army? To marry, for instance, and have children?’

  ‘I thought you were happy.’

  ‘I have been happy,’ said Zeinab. ‘Now I am wondering.’

  Expelled from Zeinab’s bosom, Owen went back to his office. He felt he needed to think things over and there, at any rate, he would be able to do it in peace. The great building was completely empty. The bearers were asleep in the yard, the clerks asleep at home. Even Nikos, his official Clerk and Office Manager, had taken himself off.

  A single telephone was ringing determinedly. He picked it up. It was Abu Bakir.

  ‘Captain Owen: could we meet? I would like to introduce you to two of my friends.’

  ‘This evening some time?’

  ‘Now would be better. We are in a café. If you come to the Bab-es-Zuweyla I will meet you.’

  When Owen arrived at the Old Gate with its tall minarets and its weapons of the Afrit giant high on its sides, he found Abu Bakir waiting. They went down a little alleyway behind the Gate and ducked into a tiny one-room café in which two men were sitting at a low table.

  ‘This is Hafiz,’ said Abu Bakir. ‘I will not say where he works but he will answer your question about who contacted the Department of Antiquities this morning.’

  ‘Thank you, Hafiz,’ said Owen. ‘But can you tell me first who it was who rang Parker at the Museum?’

  ‘Abd el Ta’arquat,’ said the man immediately.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘The under-secretary.’

  ‘And, presumably, someone rang him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  Hafiz gave Abu Bakir a quick glance. Abu Bakir nodded.

  ‘A Pasha.’

  ‘Marbrouk?’

  Hafiz looked surprised.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘not Marbrouk.’

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘Sidki Narwas Pasha.’ He hesitated. ‘And another rang after.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Raquat Pasha.’

  Where had he heard the names before?

  ‘Pashas,’ he said.

  ‘I told you,’ said Abu Bakir. He turned to the other man. ‘This is Naguib,’ he said.

  The other man bowed and shook hands. He was dressed, despite the heat, in a dark suit and wore, like Hafiz, the tasselled tarboosh of the effendi. Both were, presumably, civil servants and both, he suspected, in view of their connection with Abu Bakir, Nationalists.

  ‘You asked another question,’ said Abu Bakir.

  ‘I did?’

  ‘Earlier. You asked me who it was who had complained to the Ministry of Justice about Mr el Zaki’s investigation. Naguib will tell you.’

  ‘Their names only,’ Naguib stipulated.

  Owen nodded.

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Sidki Narwas Pasha.’

  ‘And Raquat Pasha?’

  Naguib shook his head.

  ‘Marbrouk,’ he said.

  ***

  Owen went back to his office and stayed there for the rest of the afternoon. By four o’clock he had still not heard from Miss Skinner, so he went round to her hotel and there, on her escritoire, he found the sealed envelope. He pulled out the letter inside.

  Dear friend [it said],

  In case of accidents (they have been so frequent, haven’t they?) I would like you to know that I have gone (does this surprise you? Really?) to Heraq.

  Chapter Eleven

  Owen took a police launch this time. It was less picturesque than a felucca, but more speedy. He also took wit
h him three constables, two police trackers and a fat Greek. The Greek was used to this sort of thing and his name was Georgiades.

  He was not, however, used to going out of Cairo and as the levees dropped away and revealed the plots and the plantations, the small boys on their oxen driving the water-wheels, the men up to their shins in mud coaxing the water through the fields, and the women statuesque with pots on their heads, he looked around with interest, especially at the women.

  He was, however, listening and when Owen came to a stop he said with definiteness:

  ‘We’ll start at the house.’

  When they arrived at Marbrouk’s house, though, they found it shut up and shuttered. This presented no problem to Georgiades, nor, indeed, to Owen, who as Mamur Zapt had right of entry without warrant to all premises in Cairo and reckoned that this counted as Cairo, with a bit of stretching.

  Georgiades prised open a door and they went in. All was cool and dark and sumptuous. The floors were tiled and rich carpets hung on the walls. Apart from that there was little furniture, merely a few low tables and low divans. In every room though, there were alcoves in which was an amazing collection of works of art. Unusually for an Arab—most rich modern Arabs despised the non-Arab past—most of them were Pharaonic. It was like walking through the Museum.

  Georgiades was not interested in works of art but in cellars and locked rooms. He was casually forcing open one of the latter when some men rushed in.

  ‘What are you doing?’ they shouted.

  ‘I’m looking for a woman,’ said Georgiades. ‘Perhaps you can tell me where I can find her?’

  The men froze.

  ‘Take them out,’ Georgiades said to the constables. ‘Put them in the yard.’

  When Owen went out a little later there was quite an assembly in the yard.

  ‘This is the Pasha Marbrouk’s,’ someone called out. ‘You will pay for this.’

  ‘This is the Mamur Zapt,’ said one of the constables, ‘and I am Ibrahim, and the next time you speak out of turn, you will pay for it, too.’

  The trackers came into the yard looking at the ground.

  ‘Did you find anything?’ Owen asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ they said. ‘She’s been here twice, once a few days ago—but you know that, don’t you, because we saw that you were here, too—and then again today. She went into the house.’