The Face in the Cemetery

by Michael Pearce

  ‘But that’s not going to be good enough for you, Effendi, is it? Not this time.’

  He leaned forward, and suddenly he seemed quite formidable.

  ‘This time you’ll want to be sure. You’ll want to see for yourself that things have been put right, won’t you? And so you shall.

  ‘Effendi, what I would like to propose is this: give me a day or two to put things right. And then you can go and see for yourself. My mamur will take you round. You can go to every village, if you want. You’re worried about the ghaffirs? Right. You can go round and check every one. Personally. You’ll see for yourself that every village has got a proper ghaffir and every ghaffir has got a proper gun. Not a gun will be missing. You’ll be able to see for yourself. Now, Effendi—’ the hands spread out again—‘what could be fairer than that? See for yourself. That’s my offer.’

  ‘All right,’ said Owen. ‘I’ll take you up on that.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Owen got back to Cairo he went straight to his apartment. Zeinab wasn’t there, nor had she left a note. He changed and went to his office. In his absence, brief though it had been, the pile of lists on his desk had grown to mountain-like proportions, and Nikos said that wasn’t the half of it. For the last few days McPhee had been methodically working through the lists taking people into internment. He also said that there had been several calls from Cunningham, the Finance Adviser, and from Cavendish. Owen didn’t like the sound of either of these and decided not to reply. Instead, he made a call of his own, to McKitterick, suggesting that they meet at lunch-time in the Sporting Club.

  McKitterick came eagerly across the bar room to greet him.

  ‘How have you been getting on?’ he said.

  His face seemed thinner and tauter. Owen guessed that the strain was getting to him.

  ‘Oh, making progress, making progress,’ he said. ‘What’ll you have?’

  He took the drinks to a table in the corner.

  ‘I’m beginning to get a picture of the people down there,’ he said. ‘But it would be helpful if you could fill me in with some of the background details.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The mudir, for a start. Promoted from district mamur. Is that usual?’

  ‘No, but he was highly recommended.’

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘The previous mudir, I think.’

  ‘Who had himself moved from being mamur for that district.’

  ‘Had he? I didn’t know that.’ McKitterick looked at Owen. ‘That’s not good, is it?’

  ‘Well, it means that no one new has had a look at that district for quite a long time. A district where there appears to be a lot of brigand activity.’

  McKitterick nodded, accepting.

  ‘You think there have been abuses?’ he asked.

  ‘Possibly. What can you tell me about the previous mudir? The one before the present one.’

  ‘Faruq Rahim? Well, very able. Unusually so. He didn’t stay there long but was soon promoted. To Governor at Suez, which is really quite an important job. I think they had in mind a particular project they wanted him to work on. In fact, he didn’t stay there long, either. He was soon promoted again.’

  ‘What to?’

  ‘They took him into the Ministry. Very unusual, that.’

  ‘So where is he now?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Here? Here in the Ministry?’

  ‘That’s right. He’s an Under-Secretary now.’

  There was a letter waiting for him when he got back to his office. It was postmarked Alexandria and addressed in a neat, old-fashioned hand which he recognized.

  Dear Captain Owen, it read:

  I promised I would write to you again when I had gathered my thoughts. I cannot say that I have gathered them very successfully. At my age thoughts seem to ramble rather than gather! But at any rate I have thought of a few things to tell you. I am also enclosing a letter, the last one Hilde wrote to me. I thought it better that you read it for yourself, so that you can form your own judgement, rather than relying on my reduction of it. When you have read it, would you please return it to me? Her letters are all that I now have of Hilde and I would wish to retain them. They bring her back to me, almost better than my own memories, which become, I am afraid, increasingly unreliable.

  He found the letter behind her own. It was written on cheap, thin, blue paper and in several places the ink had smudged from the perspiration from her hand as she wrote.

  Dear Mrs Pfarrer,

  How nice to get your letter and to be reminded of that lovely cool breeze along the Rue de France! No cool breeze here, I’m afraid: each day this week, when I have gone out into the yard, I have found a bird lying there gasping. I move them into the shade and try water and sometimes it works. The Hanafis watch me, baffled.

  The heat here is intense. It affects even the piano. I put bowls of water about the room but the water evaporates almost before my eyes. The sound is no longer true. Either that, or my playing is no longer true. I fear that may be so. The heat affects everything.

  But perhaps it is not the heat.

  You ask how things are. No better; perhaps no worse. We are desperate to get away. Aziz scans the appointments columns all the time. He says if we could only get away, get back to the city, things would be better. I am not so sure. His family would follow us. They are like an incubus. Or is it a succubus? Anyway, they suck you dry.

  Aziz says that in the city they would drop into the background. They would still be living with us—he cannot imagine a life without that—but they would loom less large because there would be other things. Here there is nothing. The family is all round us, it is all there is. If I try to get away, to walk down to the river, for instance, on my own, someone is always sure to tell them and then the mother comes and upbraids me. It is not seemly, it is not proper. I disgrace my husband.

  Whatever I do is wrong. It saps me, this continuous carping. It saps Aziz, too, and in some ways it is worse for him, for he is torn as well as sapped, torn between duty to them and love for me.

  That love is very real, Mrs Pfarrer. You were the one who always believed in it and you can still believe in it. It is all that keeps me alive. It is all, I think, that keeps Aziz alive. Sometimes he gets very depressed, when there is no response, for instance, to another of his countless applications for jobs. He is forever seeking a way of getting us out of here; he would do anything to get us out. He has tried all sorts of things but nothing ever seems to come of them. I sometimes feel we will be trapped here forever in this ghastly house in the sugar cane.

  But perhaps we may not be. News of the great world sometimes trickles through to us even here and it appears that huge changes are happening in the world outside. There is even talk of war! How that could help us, we don’t know. Perhaps it is just that, unable to change life for ourselves, our only hope is for life to change around us.

  But what a thing it is to hope for war as a way out of one’s difficulties!

  He read on, and then turned back to the original letter. It concluded:

  So you see, Captain Owen, perhaps I was wrong in my original letter to you to emphasize her depression. There is certainly depression here but, on re-reading this, surely there is also hope? At least there is vivacity—the vivacity I have always associated with her ever since she was a little girl. And while there is that, surely talk—as I fear I did—of suicide is premature.

  Owen folded the letter and put it in an envelope to send to Mahmoud. Then, however, he changed his mind and put it in his pocket, intending to take it home and show it to Zeinab that evening.

  She didn’t get in till late and embraced him perfunctorily. She did not say where she had been, nor did she ask him about Minya. Instead she went into the bedroom. When he went in a little later he found her already in bed, not trying to sleep but staring
at the ceiling.

  ‘Is there anything wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Why should there be?’

  He gave her the letter to read. She glanced over it and then handed it back to him without comment.

  He was a little surprised. She had seemed to have taken a particular interest in Hilde Langer.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he said again.

  ‘Yes.’

  She turned on to her side, away from him.

  ***

  The next day, Owen went to see Fricker. The camp was bigger than before—there were more tents—and more crowded. There was an extra bed in Fricker’s tent and the packing cases which had served as side-tables had been removed. The heat inside the tent was terrific.

  ‘This is not good,’ said Owen.

  Fricker made a little resigned gesture.

  ‘It is no worse than one should expect,’ he said. ‘I have suffered worse on my tours of inspection. I am not ill-treated. The food is not good, but it is sufficient. It is just—’ he hesitated—‘that I miss my work. There is nothing to do; ever. I had not realized that work was so important to me. That it made up such a big part of me.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, enough. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I come as a colleague,’ said Owen, ‘seeking a colleague’s advice.’

  ‘Well,’ said Fricker. He seemed pleased. He drew himself together and bowed slightly. ‘If I can help, I would be glad to do so.’

  ‘It concerns the issue we spoke about before: the missing guns.’

  ‘I cannot explain that,’ said Fricker. ‘I have thought about it a great deal. Yes, a great deal. I cannot understand it. The system should not have allowed it.’

  ‘I think the system may have been perverted.’

  ‘Well, that is possible,’ said Fricker doubtfully. ‘But—’

  ‘Perhaps it is not the system that we should be looking at but the people.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Fricker, cheering up. ‘People are very unreliable.’

  ‘In that—possible—connection, I would like to ask you about some of the people you met down there. The mudir, for a start.’

  ‘I have no reason to think him dishonest. Perhaps a trifle—’ Fricker thought hard to find the word—‘rascally. Is that right? Yes, rascally. But that was just an impression.’

  ‘You got on with him all right?’

  ‘Not at first. At first he was hostile, yes? He thought I was…’ Fricker considered. ‘Another prick from Cairo? Yes?’

  ‘Very likely, yes.’

  ‘He did not think much of the changes I wished to make. “Ghaffirs are stupid bastards,” he said. “You won’t get anything out of them. It’s not a system you want, it’s a miracle.” So I went ahead without him. Then one day, to my surprise, he called me in and said: “Tell me about this system again.” And after that he was quite different. Very supportive, very intelligent, even—he made some excellent suggestions. I think the turning point was when it became clear that the Ministry was likely to back my proposal to arm the ghaffirs properly. He saw then that we were serious, that we meant business.’

  ‘That was when he began to take an interest?’

  ‘That is so, yes. And afterwards I had no complaints about him at all. As I say, he was constructive and helpful, unusually so for a provincial mudir. A little loose on systems and procedure, perhaps, but—’

  ‘He knew the area well, of course. He had been mamur out in the sugar cane before he became mudir. As had the previous mudir before him.’

  ‘So I believe.’

  ‘Did you know the previous mudir?’

  ‘Faruq Rahim? No, the change had occurred before my time. I did meet him later, as a matter of fact. During one of my earlier postings. It was in the Suez area. He was the Governor there.’

  ‘That was at the time of the wireless station project?’

  ‘Yes. It was why I was posted there, I think. The contractors were going to be German—that is, if the project was approved—and, of course, I speak German. It was my first real posting. I was very honoured. Yes, pleased and honoured.’

  ‘Sadly, the project came to nothing, I gather?’

  ‘There were political considerations, so I understand. It was all, of course, far above my head.’

  ‘Did you come across him later? When he was in the Ministry?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sometimes. But, of course, he was far senior to me.’

  ‘Did you talk to him about the ghaffirs?’

  ‘Yes, I did, as a matter of fact. You see, he was one of the few senior people of the Ministry who had served in the provinces, who actually knew about ghaffirs and could understand the points I was making.’

  ‘He supported the plan?’

  ‘Oh, yes, very definitely. He said it was just what was needed.’

  Owen asked him some technical questions about procedures and then thanked him and got up to leave. Fricker walked with him to the gate.

  ‘I have been thinking about this a lot,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t make too much of it. These things are bound to happen with any system.’

  Fricker seemed surprised.

  ‘You think so?’ he said doubtfully.

  As they approached the gates, he said:

  ‘I do not think about it all the time. Much of the time I think about Hilde.’

  ‘Sad,’ said Owen.

  ‘Yes. It, too, I cannot understand. Why would anybody…?’

  ‘I know. It is hard to imagine.’

  ‘I think about Hilde a lot,’ he said again.

  ‘What exactly was your relationship with her?’

  ‘My relationship?’

  ‘You were not, by any chance, having an affaire with her?’

  Fricker stopped in his tracks.

  ‘I?’ he said. ‘I? Oh, no!’ He was covered in confusion. ‘Not I. No. I am not like that. Just music. Just music together, that was all. As in the old days. She wanted it. She wanted, I think, to go back to those days. And I, too, when she played and I sang, I thought how nice it would be.’

  He looked at Owen.

  ‘They wanted to get away, you know. Aziz spoke to me about it often. And I said I would try to help them. I would see if there was some job in the Ministry, or even outside the Ministry, but in Cairo. They wanted to come back to Cairo. And I thought, too, how nice that would be. We could play and make much music together again. But an affaire—oh, no! I am not like that, nor was she. And, besides, they loved each other. It was for her that he wanted to get away. But both together. Always together. That is what they wanted to be. That is good. I wish, sometimes, that I, too, had…’

  He shook his head.

  ‘But I am not like that,’ he said. ‘I have never married. I make my life by myself. But they—always together. They had to be together.’

  ***

  ‘You have returned to civilization then?’ said Kattim, smiling.

  Owen had rung the Ministry of Finance and asked if he could talk to him privately, and the Egyptian had suggested a café on the Midan Nasriya.

  They shook hands.

  ‘Oh, I returned some time ago. In fact, I have been down there again since!’

  ‘Indefatigable,’ murmured Kattim.

  He dropped into the chair opposite Owen.

  ‘And have your visits proved fruitful?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, yes, I think so. I think I am beginning to understand that end of it now. So now I am turning to this end. As, in fact, you advised me in the first place.’

  Kattim spread his hands deprecatingly.

  ‘Can I ask you something? You didn’t stay at Minya very long. You just looked at the books and then off you went. Why was that?’

  ‘I just can’t bear the provinces!’ said Kattim, laughing.

&nb
sp; ‘So you said, I remember. But is that true?’

  ‘It certainly is! Hot, sweaty, dirty and so, so primitive!’

  ‘But you also told me that you yourself are a man from the provinces.’

  ‘And the sooner I could get away from them, the better.’

  ‘I think you said that too. But you know, despite what you say, I think you still have a soft spot for the provinces.’

  ‘Surely not!’ said Kattim, aghast.

  ‘Oh, I think you do. In fact, I think that was partly the reason why you left. You didn’t like to see the provinces taking all the blame.’

  ‘You make me sound very charitable.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘Well, not all of it. Though some of it, certainly.’

  ‘You felt your colleagues in the Ministry of the Interior were setting the mudir up.’

  ‘Not entirely undeservedly.’

  ‘No, but not entirely fairly, either. I think you saw at once that there could be no crime locally without a complementary crime at the Ministry—that it was not a question of either but of both.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  The waiter put two cups on the table and poured them coffee.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Owen, ‘what did you do when you got back to Cairo?’

  ‘I put in a report critical of the Ministry of the Interior’s internal processes.’

  ‘And that was all?’

  ‘It’s quite a lot, actually,’ said Kattim defensively. ‘With another Ministry, that’s about as far as you can go.’

  ‘In fact, you went further,’ said Owen. ‘You tipped me off. I didn’t quite understand the tip at the time, but I think I do now.’

  Kattim smiled.

  ‘The way it was worked was this,’ said Owen. ‘As you suspected, there were two requisition notes and also two consignment notes. The first requisition note was for eight hundred and fifty guns; but then the mudir sent in another one for one thousand and fifty guns. It was the second one that was worked to initially within the Ministry, the one which triggered a consignment note and a delivery to the boat that was going to transport the guns.

  ‘The guns, one thousand and fifty of them, were duly delivered at Minya. But then the consignment note for one thousand and fifty guns, which had gone with them, was somehow lost and another substituted in its place. That second note, for eight hundred and fifty guns, not one thousand and fifty, was, of course, consistent with all the paperwork at the Minya end. It made it seem that there was nothing that they had to explain.