‘Do you know what he said once? He said that the Big Powers were like crocodiles, waiting on the bank, ready to slide into the water when the moment came. Well, the moment had come.’
‘Moment—?’
‘That conference. It was going to be the first of several. They were going to take it in turns. To carve up Egypt. First, Russia, then the others. Another thing that Tvardovsky said: “It is when the crocodiles start cooperating that you really have to watch out!”’
She smiled, bitterly, to herself in recollection.
‘Well, the crocodiles had started to cooperate.’
‘What has all this got to do with Tvardovsky?’ said Owen.
‘He thought he could stop it. And he thought he might be able to do it then, at that very first conference. It was because they were Russians, you see. He thought they might listen to him. He said that, deep down, Russians understood these things. They do not naturally think in terms of competition. So he thought he might be able to persuade them—show them that there was a different way.’
‘You mean that cooperative project of his? It never stood a chance!’
‘Of course it didn’t. You made sure of that,’ said Natasha.
***
‘You surely don’t believe her?’ said Owen, when she had gone.
‘Of course not!’ said Mahmoud.
He looked unhappy, however.
‘But there are things,’ he started to say, then stopped. ‘This conference,’ he began again. ‘The secrecy. The obstruction!’ He looked at Owen. ‘And then the gun. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I thought it was obvious. I was guarding him. What else do you think I was doing there?’
‘You had a handgun, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which you took out of your pocket? And put in another one? As she said?’
‘It got wet. It was in my hip pocket and the boat was full of water.’
‘Yes,’ said Mahmoud. ‘I understand.’ He hesitated. ‘Why, precisely, were you guarding him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘They didn’t tell me.’
‘But, surely—?’
‘The request came through in the ordinary way and I just took it for granted that it was the usual—I mean, from time to time you get people coming through, and they say, stick a guard on him, and it’s not because there’s a specific reason, it’s just that he’s, sort of, generally important. Well, I thought this was another case like that. As I say, it came through in the ordinary way and the only thing special about it was that they wanted me, me personally, to do the guarding.’
‘You personally?’
‘Yes, I know it’s a bit odd. I don’t usually do anything like this myself, we have people—’
‘But surely they must have said—I mean, when they said they wanted you personally—?’
‘I assumed it was because they wanted someone who would blend in. Not be noticed. I mean, you wouldn’t want it to be too obvious, these were important men, it was an important occasion—’
‘How many other people were being guarded? Personally, I mean?’
‘Well, none, so far as I know.’
‘Just Tvardovsky?’
‘Just Tvardovsky.’
‘But—’
Mahmoud shook his head in incredulity.
‘This was an important occasion. These were important men, as you said. And the only person being guarded was Tvardovsky?’
‘It’s not quite as bad as it sounds,’ protested Owen. ‘We did consider having a guard but decided not to. We thought it would draw attention. The Khedive wanted everything to be quiet. We thought that holding it out there by the lake would be enough. It’s far enough from everywhere for us to be able to see people coming. They’d have to come through Medinet and we had people looking out there. The thing we were afraid of, you see, was an anti-foreign demonstration—’
‘I see,’ said Mahmoud drily.
‘It doesn’t look very efficient, I know—’
‘No,’ said Mahmoud.
He was silent for quite some time. Then he looked Owen hard in the face.
‘My friend,’ he said, ‘have you told me all?’
‘All!’ said Owen, startled. ‘Well, yes, I think—’
‘You see,’ said Mahmoud. ‘It does sound extraordinarily inefficient. And I find that surprising, for to me the British have always seemed brutally efficient, at least, when their own interests are at stake. And so I wonder: is it so inefficient after all? That surely depends on what someone was trying to achieve.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t—’
‘Well, no,’ said Mahmoud. ‘You wouldn’t.’ He laid his hand affectionately on Owen’s arm. ‘You wouldn’t, my friend, because you are too generous. And too close. But you see, my friend, I ask myself why they asked for you especially as the guard and I think it was precisely because you are not, forgive me, an expert in this field.’
‘To make it easy, you mean?’
Mahmoud nodded.
‘That is one answer that one could give, yes.’
‘Wouldn’t it make it even easier,’ said Owen, smarting, ‘if they had said there was to be no guard at all?’
‘Of course I have asked myself that; and the answer I came to is this: yes, best if no questions are asked at all, if the thing can be passed off as an accident. But if the questions do start being asked, what better answer could be given than, yes, of course the man was guarded. Indeed, by no other person than the Mamur Zapt himself! That,’ said Mahmoud sympathetically but firmly, ‘is what I am beginning to think, my friend.’
***
By now it was evening. There was a hotel in the town and they were about to set off for it when a message came from Irena Kundasova. She was expecting them for dinner, she said, and she herself would be coming down to join them.
‘Of course one comes down to dinner,’ she said, overruling Natasha’s protests, ‘when one has guests.’
It was a formal occasion, eaten round a large walnut table with glasses shining in the candlelight. There was sherry with the soup, wine for the main course and a sweet dessert wine to go with the fruit. Irena Kundasova merely sipped, Mahmoud, austere in this as in everything, took nothing and Natasha and Owen took the rest.
At one point the old lady looked around. She seemed puzzled.
‘Where is Boris?’ she asked.
‘He has business,’ said Natasha.
‘Cannot he take time off even to eat?’
‘He eats elsewhere.’
‘You must look after him, my dear.’
‘I’m hoping he’ll look after me,’ said Natasha.
The old lady laughed.
‘Things are different from what they were in my day,’ she said to Owen. ‘Or perhaps they’re not.’
After dinner she returned to her room and Natasha took them out to the takhtabosh, where they sat sipping their coffee among the fragrance of the orange trees.
‘Mademoiselle,’ said Mahmoud, putting down his cup, ‘may I ask: who is Boris?’
‘Savinkov,’ said Owen, ‘one of the Russian financiers.’
‘You have been doing your research,’ said Natasha. ‘Of course, you would.’
‘He was an associate of Tvardovsky.’
‘That is right,’ agreed Natasha. ‘They worked together often.’
‘Especially in the Fayoum.’
‘That was towards the end. They had worked together in other places before. But the Fayoum was important, yes. It was why they quarrelled.’
‘Why did they quarrel?’
‘It was that crazy project of his.’
‘The cooperative one?’
‘Yes.’
‘Savinkov didn’t like it?’
‘He didn’t mind it being a cooperative. Boris is not like the others. He likes visions. He even likes Kropotkin, up to a point. That was why he and Tvardovsky got on together.’
‘What didn’t he like about it, then?’
‘The wrong place. The wrong time. It cut across other projects, when they were far advanced. He tried to persuade him to drop it. He kept on trying. He was still trying even at that hotel by the lake.’
‘Did he send you to try?’ asked Owen.
‘That night? No, that was my own idea. We had made love and afterwards I couldn’t sleep. I got up and went outside. I saw the light in Tvardovsky’s tent and I thought, well, that perhaps he might listen to me.’
‘And did he?’
‘When Tvardovsky believed in something, he believed in it absolutely. He was all afire. One idea sparked off another. It all came out in one great cascade. Listen to me?’ She laughed. ‘When he was in the grip of one of his big ideas he wouldn’t listen to anybody. It took him over completely, there was no stopping him.’
She caught herself.
‘Except,’ she said bitterly, ‘that someone did stop him.’
***
Owen and Mahmoud decided that it was too late now to go to the hotel and that they would sleep outside in the courtyard. The servants brought them bed-rolls and they took them out beneath the sycamore, where the moon would not shine in their eyes. Neither of them said anything as they unrolled the mattresses.
***
In the morning Mahmoud was nowhere to be seen. When Owen inquired of the servants, they told him that he had got up early and caught the first train.
‘To Cairo?’ said Owen, surprised and a little disconcerted.
‘To Abchaway.’
He would, it appeared, be back later. Owen, after some thought, decided to wait for him. Meanwhile, he went for a walk in the town.
The market was in full swing. Chickens ran about among the stalls. While they could. Every so often a hand descended on them and lifted them up. Then they were either thrust living into baskets or had their necks wrung. On the stalls themselves the vegetables glowed in the sunlight. The redness of the tomatoes seemed to burst out from them and hang in the air. The blackness of the eggplants took on rich, astonishing tones.
Everything was huge. The grapefruit were as large as footballs, the melons so ridiculously heavy that one was all a man could lift. Even the fish, hanging head down from a bar above the stall, were gigantic. Used as he was to Egyptian markets, Owen was surprised by this one; testimony to the bountifulness of the Fayoum, he supposed.
Even while he watched, however, the sun, which had been bestowing such richness, began to take its toll. Some of the stalls were in the shade of the trees. On those that were not, the produce began to wilt. Lettuces lost their freshness, beans their fatness. The oranges and lemons and apricots suddenly began to look dried up, the tomatoes and eggplants to look pinched.
‘The sooner you get into the new covered markets, the better!’ he said to one of the stallholders.
‘You’re right there!’ said the stallholder, wiping the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his galabeah. ‘I can’t wait!’
‘Well, I can,’ said the man on the stall next to his, looking up. ‘At the moment we can put our stalls here for nothing. In those new covered markets they’re going to charge you.’
‘It’ll be worth it, though.’
‘Yes; for the people running the markets!’
‘You say that, Ibrahim, but I bet that when the markets go up, you’ll be one of the first people in!’
‘I’ll have to be, won’t I? Because that’s where the people will be. But I tell you this: it’s not the likes of you and me who are going to benefit from this. We’re not going to be any richer. The only people who’ll make money out of this will be the Kfouri Brothers.’
‘Kfouri Brothers?’ said Owen. ‘Aren’t they the people who own the cotton mills?’
‘And about everything else in the Fayoum as well,’ said the stallholder sourly.
‘I remember them when they were just shopkeepers,’ said the first stallholder. ‘Now it seems they can buy anything. I don’t know where they get the money from.’
‘And they’re the ones behind this Covered Markets Scheme?’
‘So they say. Which means that the likes of you and me, Ibrahim, can’t expect many favours.’
‘That’s just what I was saying, Abdul. We’d be better off as we are.’
The first stallholder looked along the row of stalls. All those in the sun were deserted. What people there were—it was getting late in the morning—were congregated about the ones in the shade.
‘I don’t know about that, Ibrahim. They say that the new markets will be wonders of the world! Even the ones for sheep and cows will have roofs on them. And running water, too.’
‘Running water? For animals!’ said the second stallholder, scandalized. ‘I tell you, you’re better off being a cow than a person in Egypt nowadays!’
***
Back in the house, Owen found no one about. The servants were in the kitchen, the old lady and Natasha presumably upstairs. Although the shutters had remained closed, the temperature in the house had crept up and in all the lower rooms it was unpleasantly hot. With the exception of the dining room, which had been cleared for the meal the previous evening, the rooms were exactly as they were when he and Mahmoud had arrived. Owen wondered when Mahmoud would allow them to be tidied. When he returned, presumably.
There was a footstep in the corridor outside and Irena Kundasova appeared in the doorway. She came into the room.
‘Why!’ she said. ‘What a mess! Someone must tidy it up.’ She looked across the room. ‘The ikon!’ she said. ‘It has been put back. How thoughtful of someone! Was it Abdul?’
She went up to it and patted it fondly.
‘Irena Kundasova,’ said Owen, ‘why did they move the ikon?’
She looked at him in surprise.
‘To look behind it. That’s where people often keep their letters in Russia. That’s where they always look,’ she said.
***
Along the corridor he heard voices. A burly man of about fifty, dressed in an immaculate white suit, came into the room.
‘Boris!’ said the old lady with pleasure.
The man bent over and kissed her hand.
‘Irena!’ he said, retaining her hand and caressing it gently.
‘Where were you last night? You should have been here.’
‘I know. I had to see someone and they made me stay.’
‘You will make Natasha jealous if you carry on like that.’
‘I know. It was a mistake.’
She touched his cheek and left the room. A little later Owen heard her talking to Natasha at the other end of the corridor.
The man turned to Owen and came across, hand outstretched.
‘Savinkov.’
‘Owen.’
‘Oh, yes. The Mamur Zapt. Natasha told me she had sent for you. It was kind of you to come. But—to come for this? A petty burglary?’
‘Perhaps it was not petty.’
‘Not petty?’ The Russian seemed puzzled.
Owen said nothing.
‘Forgive me,’ said Savinkov hastily. ‘I have no wish to interfere. But Irena Kundasova is an old friend of mine and I am concerned for her. A thing like this is a shock to someone of her age. I came at once to see if I could lend her any assistance. The Russian community in Egypt is a small one and we are very close. So when Natasha said she needed help—But, Captain Owen, if this is not a petty burglary, then she needs help even more!’
He looked round the room.
‘But what makes you say that this is not a petty burglary?’
Owen pointed to the notes still lying on the top of
the desk.
‘Petty thieves don’t usually leave the money,’ he said.
‘Well, no, but—something other than money, perhaps?’
‘What would that be?’
‘Valuables of some sort? There are many beautiful things in the house.’
‘None of which appear to have been taken.’
‘I see. Yes, well, that is puzzling, I admit. But, Captain Owen, excuse my saying so, is that enough to bring the Mamur Zapt here? The Parquet, yes, I can understand that. But the Mamur Zapt?’
‘Irena Kundasova and I had met before.’
‘Yes, yes, I have heard about that…That was to do with Tvardovsky, was it not?’ He hesitated, and then seemed to make up his mind. ‘Captain Owen—please, I am not asking this out of idle curiosity—could this break-in also, by any chance, be something to do with Tvardovsky?’
‘Possibly.’
‘I ask as a friend of his, a close friend, perhaps his closest. It was I who looked after his body.’
‘You looked after his body?’ said Owen, surprised.
‘Well, yes,’ said Savinkov, surprised in his turn. ‘I was there, if you remember. At the hotel.’
‘I thought it was the Consul who looked after the body?’
‘The formalities, yes. But when a friend dies there is more to death than formalities. I stayed with the body. I wished to—I wished…I suppose, to give him company. Natasha, also.’
‘You were the one who saw that the body was cremated? Why was it done so quickly?’
‘Well, Captain Owen, you must know that. It was the heat—in this country you have to—’
‘Yes, yes, I know. But there were things that should have been done first, examinations that ought to have been made.’
‘The Consulate was supposed to be looking after that side. If things were not done exactly as they should have been, then I am sorry, but—’
His voice died away.
‘Captain Owen, am I to suppose, from what you say, that those examinations were important? That there was something that made them, perhaps, especially important this time?’
‘You may suppose that.’
‘Captain Owen—please!—what was that?’
‘Doubt about the circumstances in which he died.’
Death of an Effendi Page 11