“No. Not often.”
“It happened the other day, though, didn’t it?” said one of the other donkey-boys with a grin.
They all laughed.
“It was for that woman, the one your uncle picked up. We know whose carriage it was, too!”
“A posh one,” suggested Mahmoud.
“Very posh. A bit different from your uncle’s,” they said to Daouad’s friend, who appeared to be something of a butt; though perhaps they were merely envious.
“All the same, your uncle did pick her up,” said Owen consolingly.
“That was on another day. She’s popular, that one.”
“Did he pick up anyone with her?”
“A man.”
“I didn’t know your uncle’s arabeah would take three people, Ali,” said one of the donkey-boys.
“It can do.”
“If they sit on each other’s knees.”
“That new horse of your uncle’s would have to work hard.”
“Because the old one doesn’t.”
“A two-man arabeah will take three people,” Ali insisted. “But not your uncle’s.”
The conversation seemed to be setting into a groove. Owen and Mahmoud walked slowly back across the street. They would pick up the question of Ali’s uncle and his passengers later.
They took an arabeah themselves to the police headquarters at the Bab el Khalk. That was where Owen’s own office was but they weren’t going there. Instead, they went down to the basement and got a clerk to bring them the files of the hotel dragomans.
There was little in them: application forms for a dragoman’s license (all the dragomans could write); health certificates (in case of contagious diseases) and testimonials. There were quite a lot of these, copied out in the ornate script of the bazaar letter-writer. Many were from former guests at hotels, some implausibly effusive, others deliberately ambiguous. Most were politely appreciative, one or two genuinely perceptive. Of Osman someone had commented: “You can trust this man absolutely provided you pay him more than anyone else does.” The testimonial was written in English and transcribed faithfully by the letter-writer. Of Abdul Hafiz someone had written, again in English: “Can be relied on for confidential commissions.” Owen wondered what they were.
Mahmoud went through all the files, including the ones of those dragomans who had been at the Pyramids on the day Moulin had disappeared. He concentrated particularly, though, on the two who had been in the corridor. One of these was Osman.
Osman had been at Shepheard’s longer than any other dragoman, a tribute to his dexterity if not necessarily to his integrity. He was better educated than the other dragomans, having been not only to the madrisseh, the secondary school, but also, for a time, to the University of El Azhar. The university admitted students at an early age and Osman had gone there when he was thirteen and left when he was fifteen, without completing his studies. At El Azhar these were mainly of a religious character. It could well be that Osman’s bent was more for the secular, since he had started by serving in a hotel and worked gradually toward the status of dragoman.
The other dragoman who had been in the corridor, Selim, was more of a shadowy figure. He had worked for some time at Luxor before coming to Cairo and had developed there a vivid but not necessarily accurate knowledge of antiquities which stood him in good stead when he took parties to visit the Pyramids.
The only thing of interest about Abdul Hafiz was that he was a Wahhabi. It was something Owen might almost have guessed from Abdul’s reaction to Osman’s tricks with the cigar smoke, for the Wahhabis were a strict sect with severe standards; so severe, indeed, that it was a little surprising to find Abdul in the post of a dragoman, which would necessarily bring him into contact with the more indulgent standards of the West. Life, and poverty, however, forced compromise on even the strictest and no doubt Abdul, like many Cairenes, was glad of the money. Certainly he had performed his duties, according to the testimonials, in exemplary fashion.
Owen had heard nothing for a while from either Berthelot or from Madame Moulin and suspected he was being deliberately kept ignorant of developments. That there were developments became clear when he received a phone call from his friend Paul at the Consulate-General.
“Keep off Moulin for a bit,” he said.
“Is that an order or a diplomatic request?”
“It’s a Diplomatic Request to us, it’s an order to you.”
“From the French?”
“Who else.”
“It means they’re going to pay.”
“Very likely,” Paul agreed.
“They’re going to meet the kidnappers’ demands.”
“That’s right. And they don’t want you mucking it up this time.”
“Is it really a Diplomatic Request?”
“Yes.”
“And the Old Man has agreed?”
“Why not? It doesn’t cost us anything. And it’s about time we did something to oblige the French.”
“It’s the principle,” Owen complained.
“There are several principles involved. One is not to give in to kidnappers. The other is to oblige the French when it doesn’t matter. The second principle has higher priority at the moment.”
“It hasn’t usually.”
“That’s why it has now. They’re getting restive, not just over the contracts, and we need to give them a sop.”
“It’s OK from the point of view of Moulin himself, poor sod,” said Owen.
“Quite right. A touch of compassion. We have a heart too. I told the French that only this morning.”
“It’s just that it might encourage other people to do the same.”
“Kidnap Frenchmen? Well, as long as it’s Frenchmen…”
“It could be anybody.”
“I know. I’m not suggesting you drop the case. I’m just suggesting you take a break.”
“Go to Luxor?”
“Well…”
“I thought you were saying the other day I didn’t need a break?”
“You don’t. But what you do need for a couple of days is a change of activity. Preferably one which would take you out of Cairo.”
“OK,” said Owen resignedly. “Two days, is it?”
“Make it three. I’ll let you know if you can come back earlier.”
Zeinab’s father, Nuri Pasha, had offered to lend Owen a house in the country, so Owen took him up on the offer. It was a small estate about forty miles out of Cairo with cotton fields and orange trees. Owen found it interesting to ride around the estate and see the work that went on: the picking of the cotton, the threshing of the corn with buffaloes, the milking of the buffaloes and the watering of the oranges. Zeinab did not and sulked most of their stay. Owen had hoped this might count as the holiday he had promised her. Zeinab, comfortable only in Cairo and Paris, made it clear it did not.
No message came from Paul, so they took the full three days. When they got back to the station one of Paul’s bearers was waiting for them. He handed Owen an envelope. Owen opened it. Within was a single sheet of paper on which was written simply (!)-an exclamation mark. There was nothing else.
Later Owen found out that the proposed exchange had fallen through. The kidnappers, at the last moment, had insisted on more money. “If we give in they’ll merely up it again,” Madame Moulin had said, and declined to deal.
It didn’t take Georgiades very long to find out who Ali’s uncle was, nor to find out that on one occasion he had indeed picked up Madame Chevenement and Berthelot from the hotel. And it was the work of the time it takes to drink a cup of tea to find out where he had taken them. It took, however, rather longer to persuade Ali’s uncle to take Georgiades and Owen to the spot himself, but this was because Ali’s uncle, seeing the chance of a bargain, had stuck out for an inordinately large sum of money. In the end, though, he was persuaded to take them there for not much more than the price of an ordinary fare.
The arabeah was waiting for them in the At
aba el Khadra, the busy square from which nearly all the tramways of Cairo started. Georgiades had considered, since it was such a hot day, asking Ali’s uncle to pick them up from the Bab el Khalk but had decided that so close a proximity to the police headquarters would alarm him unnecessarily.
He was alarmed enough as it was, staring fearfully at them from his perch at the front of the cab. The cab itself was old but roomy, with torn, shabby seating leather and a distinct smell of sweat. The two white horses were twitching at the flies with their hennaed tails and Owen was able to impress Georgiades by referring familiarly to the obvious newness of one of them.
New or not, it shared its senior’s obvious reluctance to raise its pace above a steady amble. The place they were going to was on the outskirts of the city and Owen soon realized that it was going to take them a long time to get there.
He used the time to bring Georgiades up to date on recent developments: such as the collapse of the arrangements to ransom Moulin.
“They’re getting cocky, aren’t they?” said Georgiades. “One hundred thousand piastres is a lot of money. You’d think they’d take it and run.”
“They think they can make more. That’s the trouble about giving in too quickly. It gets taken as a sign of weakness.”
“You’ve got to start dealing at some point. It’s hard to get it right.”
“If you have to start dealing.”
“If you don’t, you get what that poor bastard Tsakatellis got.” The arabeah turned toward the river and began to go across the bridge. They got the first puff of the river breeze.
“Incidentally,” said Georgiades, “about Tsakatellis; you talked to his mother. Did you talk to anyone else in the family?”
“Only the Copt who ran the shop.”
“It might be interesting to talk to someone else. In the family.”
“She rather gave me the impression she was in charge.”
“Greek mothers are like that,” said Georgiades, sighing. “She handled the whole kidnapping thing herself.”
“That’s why I’d like to talk to someone else about it. Do you mind if I do?”
“Go ahead,” said Owen. “You’re the expert on things Greek.”
Crossing the bridge, revived by the breeze, the horses had positively-well, at least strolled. Now they seemed to have stopped altogether.
“What’s going on?” said Georgiades.
“Nothing is going on,” said Ali’s uncle.
“I know. That’s why I’m asking. Why have the horses stopped?”
“They have not stopped,” said Ali’s uncle, hurt. “They have merely slackened their pace.”
“Why?”
“There is a camel in front.”
“Then overtake it.”
“I cannot.”
“Why not?”
“Because in front of the camel there is a cart.”
“Cannot you pass both of them?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because coming in the opposite direction is a donkey with a load.”
Georgiades leaned out to inspect.
“The donkey is still far away. Even your horses could pass. Where is your spirit, man? Are you not an arabeah-driver?” Thus goaded, Ali’s uncle attempted to overtake, but so half-heartedly that in the end he was obliged to cut in on the cart, which earned him a torrent of abuse from the carter. Instead of instantly responding in kind, as most arabeah-drivers would have done, delighted at the chance to display their own rhetorical skills, he cracked his whip over his horses and scuttled away fearfully. He seemed as low-spirited as his nephew.
“How did Izkat Bey come to choose him?” asked Owen, astonished.
Izkat Bey was the man who had been in the arabeah when it had picked up Madame Chevenement and Berthelot from Shepheard’s.
“Accident. He came out into the street looking for an arabeah and to his misfortune he found this one.”
Ali’s uncle, who did not usually attract such splendid custom, had been only too ready to reveal the identity of so distinguished a person to Georgiades.
“Why didn’t he use his own arabeah?” asked Owen.
“Didn’t want to be recognized, I suppose.”
Izkat Bey was one of the Khedive’s senior Court Officials. His function at Court was obscure but of his power there was no doubt. He was close to the Khedive and, like most of those close to the Khedive, a Turk. He shared the ruling circle’s arrogance toward the Egyptians and antipathy to the British and seemed particularly to relish those commissions of the Khedive which gave him opportunities to display both those qualities. His name was one of those that appeared on Zeinab’s list.
When Owen had asked Abdul for a list of Samira’s guests she had at first refused. “I do not spy on my friends,” she said haughtily. Then, characteristically changing her mind, she had furnished him with a list. “It is not complete, however,” she had warned him. “I have left off all my friends.” The inference was that Izkat Bey was not one of Zeinab’s friends. This was quite likely as the Bey had a traditional view of the role of women. He came to Samira’s because she was royal and because he was bidden; and Owen guessed that he saw the occasion as one for the transaction of business rather than for the pleasures of social intercourse.
The arabeah threaded its way along beside the river bank until it had left most of the built-up area behind it. They came to an area of market gardens, cultivated fields and fields of maize. They came suddenly upon a great pile of pumpkins which marked the spot where a small secondary track, barely a yard wide, ran off to the left down to the river. All around were patches of peas, beans, tomatoes, onions, cauliflowers, mangoes, guavas, figs and watermelons. There was no one in sight except for over to the left where a small boy on a buffalo was working a sakiya, one of the traditional, heavy wooden water-wheels.
It was here that Ali’s uncle stopped.
Chapter 7
"This is where you brought them?” asked Owen.
“Yes, effendi,” said Ali’s uncle humbly.
“If you are playing tricks with me-”
“I am not, effendi. I swear it!” Ali’s uncle protested vigorously.
“You brought them here? To this very spot?”
“Yes, effendi.”
Owen climbed out of the arabeah and looked around him. In the distance he could hear the regular, rhythmic creaking of the water-wheel and then, far away across the cauliflower and maize, the faint singing of peasants at work in the fields. “Did they come here to meet someone?”
“I do not think so, effendi,” said Abdul’s uncle diffidently.
“You saw no one?”
“No, effendi.”
“They just came here and looked around?”
“They talked, effendi.”
“What did they talk about?”
“I do not know, effendi. I did not hear.”
“They just sat and talked?”
“They stood and talked. They descended from the arabeah.”
“And then they went home again?”
“Yes, effendi.”
Owen looked around, completely baffled. There seemed nothing here but garden crops and in the distance fields of berseem, the green fodder which the camels brought in every day across the bridge for the use of the donkey-boys and the arabeah-drivers.
Owen’s heart began to sink.
“Have they tricked us again?” he said to Georgiades, who had come across and was standing beside him.
“They can’t have! They couldn’t have known.”
“They might have done it as a precaution.”
“Just on the off-chance that someone would be trying to check on the journeys they had made?”
“It sounds ridiculous.”
“It is ridiculous. No,” said Georgiades, shaking his head. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
Georgiades walked over to inspect the cauliflowers. They were planted in rows and there were little chan
nels running between them. The channels were hard-caked and smooth. As he watched, a little trickle of water began to run along them.
“The dam,” said Georgiades. “Is it something to do with the dam?”
“Not up here,” Owen objected. “It can’t be, surely.”
The water was coming from the sakiya. It was just reaching the field of cauliflowers. More and more trickles appeared in the channels and in some of them it was now flowing freely.
“Did they walk anywhere?” Georgiades asked Ali’s uncle.
“No, effendi.”
Ali’s uncle seemed daunted by it all. Perhaps it was leaving the city for the great open spaces. But then, Ali’s uncle was easily dauntable.
“I heard them talk of the river,” he volunteered, though, hopefully.
“What did they say?”
“One could travel by river.”
“Who could?”
“I do not know, effendi. I did not hear.”
He had caught the mention of travel by river, though from where and where to and for what reason had passed him by, as did most things in life, Owen uncharitably felt.
He and Georgiades walked down to the water-wheel. A raised, banked-up main channel ran back alongside the path in the general direction of the river. At intervals subsidiary channels took the water off and distributed it through the fields. They could see the water running down the furrows between the plants and suddenly turning the parched soil into soft, fertile mud.
As they neared the river they saw that the water came from the water-wheel. It was a traditional native wooden one, consisting of a heavy horizontal wheel, turned by a buffalo working round it, and connected through cogs to a large vertical wheel at the river’s edge. There were buckets set all ’round the vertical wheel which scooped up the river water as the wheel turned and emptied it into a steep gutter from which it flowed into the distributing channels.
On the top of the buffalo was a small boy.
“That is a big buffalo,” said Georgiades, “for a small boy.”
“It is my father’s buffalo,” the boy said proudly.
“Oh? Then you are not a boy hired for the day but work on the buffalo as your father’s son?”
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