The Mamur Zapt & the Return of the Carpet

by Michael Pearce

  Owen was thinking about what Garvin had said. About building up his own map of Cairo.

  “I might not pursue Aziz,” he said, “if Aziz could help me occasionally.”

  Zeinab shook her head. “He’s too frightened.”

  “No one would know.”

  “He would still be too frightened.”

  Owen nodded slowly. There was no need to press.

  “I might leave him alone anyway,” he said. “He’s a small fish.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Was that what you wanted?” he asked. “What you came for?”

  “Ye-es. And to give you the information.”

  “About the club? It’s interesting,” he said, “but I need to know more. Its name, for instance. Would his wife know?”

  “You are not to approach her!” she said fiercely. “She is frightened enough already.”

  “Could you find out? She might talk to you.”

  “You are asking a lot.”

  “It was your father,” he pointed out. “And he might still be at risk.”

  “She would be at risk if she gave you the name,” Zeinab said. “And she’s a very small fish indeed.”

  “I would like to help,” said Owen, “only you’ll have to tell me more.”

  Zeinab sat thinking it over.

  Owen was content to wait.

  Eventually she made up her mind.

  “I will ask her,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “But you are not to speak to her. Even if I fail. Promise me.”

  “Very well,” said Owen. “I promise.”

  ***

  The next morning he received a phone call from her. She had obtained the information he wanted, she said. Better still, she had arranged for him to meet the lady in question. He was to go to the Sharia el Mourani that evening about seven. There was a hairdresser’s, Steffano’s. It had an entrance from the rear, in the Sharia el Cheriffein. Next to a perfume-seller’s. He was to go in that entrance. She would use the other one. Someone would be expecting him and would show him to a room.

  “Steffano’s,” he said, “isn’t that…?”

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s why it will be quite safe. Everyone uses it. They will think it just another assignation.”

  One of the ways in which Cairene women evaded the constraints their husbands placed on them was through private appointments in apartments set aside for that purpose, usually above fashionable shops. Respectable ones allowed amateur partners only; but there was, too, a thriving trade in boys. Good-looking European boys were preferred. Steffano’s was not a house of that sort, but the fact that Owen was European would fit.

  He found the entrance without difficulty. A Greek girl was waiting inside. She looked carefully at Owen and then led the way upstairs.

  He was shown into a room with a deep, soft carpet, divans and exquisite brocade drapings over the walls. The girl motioned to him to sit down on one of the divans and then left the room.

  Owen heard a faint noise behind him and looked round quickly. Half-concealed behind some of the draping was a door. It opened fully and Zeinab came into the room. Behind her he could just see the figure of another woman.

  “My friend does not think it proper to be in the room with you alone,” Zeinab said, “or even with me present. She will stay in the room beyond and talk through the door.”

  “How will I know it is the woman I think?” asked Owen.

  Zeinab looked at him sharply.

  “You will have to take my word,” she said. “I wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if it was another woman.”

  “Is she veiled?”

  “She has her veil.”

  “I would like to see her face.”

  “You can’t,” said Zeinab flatly.

  “For a moment,” said Owen. “Through the doorway would be enough.”

  Zeinab turned and spoke to the woman. There was some debate. Eventually she stood aside. The woman beyond timidly dropped her veil, just for an instant. It was enough. It was the woman Owen had seen in the Syrian’s house.

  He indicated that he was satisfied. Zeinab walked across and sat down on the divan opposite him. If he talked directly to her he would have his back to the other woman. He compromised by sitting half round so that he could both address Zeinab and keep an eye on the door behind him. It was just a precaution.

  “The society,” said Zeinab, “is Tademah.”

  “How does she know?”

  “She has seen a letter.”

  “Signed Tademah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Addressed to her husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did the letter say?”

  Zeinab looked over his shoulder. The woman began to speak, hesitantly and so softly that he could hardly hear her.

  “It spoke of guns,” she said.

  “Which your husband had? Or was going to get?”

  “To get, I think.” The woman was almost inaudible.

  “The note asked him to get them?”

  “Yes,” the woman breathed.

  “Did it say how the guns would be collected?”

  “I do not remember.”

  “Or how they would be paid for?”

  “I do not remember.”

  He heard a little sob.

  “It does not matter,” he said. “But you are sure it was from Tademah?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “It said at the bottom.”

  “Just Tademah? No other name?”

  “No.”

  After a moment she said: “It was at the top of the letter, too. It said, ‘Greetings from Tademah.’”

  “Did it threaten your husband?”

  “Not this time.”

  He could barely catch the words.

  “There have been other letters?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know? Have you seen them?”

  “No. My husband has spoken of them.”

  “He is worried by them?”

  “Yes,” she said, “yes.”

  “Do they come often? How often do the letters come?”

  There was a pause.

  “I don’t know,” the woman said eventually. “He does not always tell me.”

  “But he worries about them?”

  “Yes,” she said, “always. He always worries about them. He does not sleep.”

  “You know when he is worried,” Owen said. “How often is that? Once a month?”

  “No,” she said. “Not as often. Three months, four months perhaps.”

  “Have you ever seen any of the men?”

  This time he could not hear the answer at all. He looked at Zeinab. She shook her head.

  “Does your husband go out to meet them?”

  Again he could not hear.

  Zeinab shook her head again.

  “You’d better stop,” she said.

  “One question more,” said Owen. “How long has your husband been receiving these letters?”

  This time he heard the answer clearly.

  “For two years,” she said. “For two years we have had this badness with us. Two years of not sleeping at night, of worrying about my husband, about what we would do if…if…”

  Zeinab stood up.

  “You see?” she said.

  The woman’s voice steadied.

  “Of worrying about the children,” she said.

  Owen stood up, too.

  “Thank you,” he said to he woman behind him. “You have been very helpful. You have told me what I needed. I shall remember this and be a friend to you.”

  Zeinab went into the room with the woman and shut the door behind her. Owen left by the way he had come.

/>   ***

  He went home to change before going out to dinner. There was a message waiting for him. He rang the office at once.

  “You’d better come in,” said Nikos. “There’s been an attack on Ahmed.”

  Chapter Ten

  “I thought we had a man on him?” said Owen.

  “We did,” said Georgiades.

  “Then what the hell was he doing?”

  “Watching,” said Georgiades, “as he was told to.”

  “Yes, but not to watch him being half-killed.”

  “I’ll kick his backside,” said Georgiades. “Tell you what. You kick his backside. It will have more effect.”

  He went to the door and bellowed. “Ya Hamid.”

  Bare feet padded along the corridor and a subdued man in a dirty white gown came into the room.

  “Effendi!” he said, and touched his heart.

  “Hamid!” said Owen sternly.

  “Yes, effendi?”

  “What is all this?”

  “Tell him the whole sad story,” Georgiades directed.

  Hamid studied his toes.

  “I was watching the boy,” he said in a low voice. “He came out of the college with his friend and walked along the Sharia el Torba. They crossed the Sharia Mohammed Ali and went into the Sharia es Souekeh. They stopped at a lemonade-seller and sat there for a long time. Some other young joined them and they talked a lot. Then the others left and the boy and his friend went on towards the Sharia Khalig el Masri. Just before they came to the Mosque el Behat some men fell upon them.”

  “How many?”

  “Four, effendi. They were big, strong men with clubs. They knocked the boy down and beat him sorely. Then his friend ran away and I heard him calling for the police.”

  “Did the men try to rob the boy?”

  “No, effendi. They just beat him.”

  “No knives?”

  “None, effendi. Just clubs.”

  Owen looked at Georgiades.

  “They just wanted to scare him,” said the Greek.

  “Looks like it, doesn’t it?” said Owen.

  He turned sternly on Hamid.

  “And all this time,” he said, “you watched and did nothing?”

  “Yes, effendi,” said the man humbly.

  He rubbed one foot against his shin. As the horny sole scraped up and down there was a distinct rasp.

  “There were four of them, effendi,” he said, “and they were all bigger and stronger than I.”

  “You ought to eat more,” said Georgiades, inspecting him critically.

  “You could have shouted for the police,” Owen said to Hamid, still sternly but softening.

  “Then they would have beaten me,” said Hamid.

  He put the foot back on the ground and examined it carefully.

  “Besides,” he said, “the friend was calling for the police. And, besides, I was told but to watch.”

  It was hardly fair to expect heroics from a man paid a few milliemes an hour. Owen looked at Georgiades and shrugged. Georgiades grinned.

  “Our friend keeps his feet on the ground,” he said, “in one sense at least.”

  He turned to Hamid.

  “So you watched,” he said. “Tell us what you saw.”

  “The men went on beating the boy until they tired. Then one of the men said: ‘That is our work well done. Let us go now to the bath house and claim our reward.’”

  Owen interrupted him.

  “‘The bath house,’ you said? The hammam?”

  “Yes, effendi. They said they would go to the hammam to claim their reward.”

  “I don’t suppose,” said Owen, discounting the possibility even before he had said it, “that you followed them to the hammam?”

  Hamid traced a long circle with his toe. Reluctantly he raised his eyes to Owen’s.

  “Effendi,” he said. “I did.”

  “What?”

  “The boy was all right,” Hamid pleaded. “I heard him groan. There was a woman by, with onions, and I said: ‘Stay with the boy. His friend comes shortly with aid.’”

  “Hamid!” said Owen, awestruck. “You have done well.”

  “It was all right to leave the boy?” asked Hamid anxiously. “Not to watch?”

  “On this occasion,” said Owen, “it was all right.”

  “He would not have been able to do anything,” Hamid reassured him. “He had been well beaten.”

  “It does not matter,” said Owen.

  It did, however, matter to Hamid.

  “I would not have left him otherwise,” he assured them.

  “On this occasion,” said Owen, “it was justified.”

  Hamid was inclined to pursue the point further but Georgiades laid his hand on the Arab’s arm.

  “Tell us, ya Hamid,” he said conversationally, “what happened at the hammam?”

  Hamid, happier now, stopped tracing patterns on the floor with his toe and looked up brightly.

  “When we got to the hammam,” he said, “the men went in.”

  “Yes?” said Owen, with sinking heart.

  “I waited outside lest they suspect I was following them.”

  “You did not go in?”

  “Oh no, effendi!” Hamid was shocked. “They would have seen me. Besides, it would have cost two piastres.”

  “So you waited outside.”

  “Yes, effendi.” Hamid beamed.

  “And then?”

  “Then the men came out,” said Hamid, “and went away. But I did not follow them this time.”

  A thought struck him.

  “Should I have followed them, effendi?” he asked anxiously.

  “No,” said Owen, resigned. “No, Hamid. You had done your best.”

  “Thank you, effendi,” said Hamid, bursting with pride.

  Owen took a deep breath.

  “So you did not see the man they talked with,” he said, more in confirmation than in hope.

  “Only when he came out with them,” said Hamid.

  “You saw him, then?”

  “Yes, effendi?” said Hamid, surprised.

  Owen fought to keep himself in control.

  “What did he look like? What did he say?” he snapped.

  Then, realizing that two questions at a time were probably too much for Hamid, he calmed down.

  “Tell me, ya Hamid,” he said, in as relaxed a tone as he was capable of, “did you by any chance hear him talking with the men?”

  “Yes, effendi,” said Hamid, beginning to worry that he had said or done something wrong.

  “Can you remember what was said?”

  “The men were grumbling. One said to another: ‘Fifty piastres is not enough.’ Another said: ‘He promised us more.’ The man said: ‘That is all you get until I know you have done your work properly. Come to me tomorrow and I will give you the other fifty.’ The men went on grumbling but he would not give them more. ‘We will come back tomorrow,’ they said. Then they went away.”

  Georgiades patted Hamid on the arm.

  “You have done well,” he said, “to remember all that. Has he not?” he appealed to Owen.

  “He has done very well,” Owen agreed, “and shall be rewarded for it. I do not suppose,” he said, looking at Georgiades, “that he also heard where these bad men were going to meet.”

  “At the hammam,” said Hamid promptly.

  “At the hammam? Indeed!” said Georgiades. “And I don’t suppose,” he went on, “that they said when this would be?”

  “Oh yes they did!” said Hamid, confident again now. “At sunset tomorrow.”

  “Would you know the men if you saw them?” Owen asked.

  “Oh yes, effendi,” said Hamid fervently.

  �
�And that other? The one they talked with?”

  “Oh yes, effendi!”

  “Then you have done well!” said Owen, patting him on the shoulder.

  “You have done very well!” said Georgiades. “And I shall speak to the senior orderly about you and he will see that you eat well and drink well tonight. Then tomorrow you will help us and for that you will receive double pay. Which you richly deserve!”

  He shepherded Hamid off along the corridor. A little later he came back mopping his brow.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “I feel as if the heat is getting to me. I have this dream: I am the one sane man in a world of madmen. Or vice versa.”

  “For God’s sake don’t let him lose himself,” said Owen.

  “I won’t!” Georgiades promised. “Not till after. Then I’ll let him lose himself quick.”

  “Keep him here overnight.”

  “And all tomorrow as well. I’ve told Osman not to let him go out, not even for a pee. I’ve told Abdul Kassem not to let him out of his sight.”

  Owen went across to the window and pushed open the shutters. The cool night air came in. He kept his face there for a moment.

  “There is a faint chance that he won’t mess it up tomorrow,” he told the shutters. “Only faint. I’ve been in Cairo long enough to know that.”

  “Faint,” Georgiades agreed. “But a chance.”

  Nikos stuck his head in.

  “There’s a message for you to ring your friend in the Parquet,” he said.

  Nikos did not approve of such relations. He was a traditionalist as far as the department was concerned.

  He looked pointedly at his watch.

  “I am going home.”

  ***

  “It was a warning,” said Nuri.

  He had asked to see them when they arrived at the house the following morning. Their purpose was really to see Ahmed but Nuri’s man had waylaid them.

  He received them this time in a small downstairs room he evidently used as a study or library. The walls, unusually for Arab rooms, were lined with books, most of them in French. There was a desk with carved ivory paperweights, cut in the figure of nude women. There was a Persian carpet on the floor, and there were two deep, comfortable, leather armchairs.

  Nuri motioned to them to sit in the armchairs. He himself used the high-backed wooden chair at the desk. This gave him the advantage of height. The squat, square form seemed to loom over them.