The Girl in the Nile

by Michael Pearce

  The spot was clearly a favorite one with the crew and there had been several men dozing there when Owen and Mahmoud had appeared. They had gone aft to leave them to talk to the steersman in private, but one of them, the cook presumably, had disappeared into the galley.

  “She was still up there at that point?”

  “Yes.” The steersman’s wrinkled face broke into a smile. “I reckoned the midges would soon drive her down.”

  “It was dark by then?”

  “Just. They were up there admiring the sunset but I wanted to stop while there was still a bit of light. There are one or two things you have to do and you can always do them better if you can see what you’re doing. Besides, the Prince didn’t want us to go too far. He wanted another night on the river!”

  “Oh, he did, did he? And why was that?”

  “Why do you think? Perhaps he likes it better on the water.”

  “That’s what it was about, you think?”

  “What else could it be? He goes down to his estate and doesn’t stay there a moment, we call in at Luxor and he doesn’t want to go ashore. We go straight down and straight back and the only thing we stop for is to pick up some women at Beni Suef!”

  “Those women,” said Mahmoud, “what were they like?”

  “Classy. But not the sort you’d want to take home with you.”

  “Foreign.”

  The steersman hesitated. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know. Two of them were, certainly. The other—that’s the one who finished up in the river—I’m not sure about.”

  “You’re sure about the others, though?”

  “Oh yes. You could hear them talking. Mind you, she was talking with them. I don’t know, of course, but it just seemed to me…well, and then there were the clothes.”

  “What about the clothes?”

  “Well, they all wore the tob.” The tob was a loose outer gown. “And the burka, of course.” The burka was a long face veil which reached almost to the ground. “But from where I was you could see their legs.”

  “Yes. The Rais told us.”

  “I’ll bet he did! He oughtn’t to have seen that, ought he? I mean, he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been looking. You’d have thought a man like that, strict, he’s supposed to be—”

  “The women,” said Mahmoud patiently.

  “Yes, well, the thing was that—I mean, I couldn’t see clearly—but I reckon those two had European clothes on underneath their tobs. You could see their ankles. But the other one, well, I caught a glimpse. She was wearing shintiyan.”

  “Pink ones?” said Owen.

  “Why, yes,” said the steersman, surprised. “That’s right. How did you know? Oh, I suppose you’ve seen the body.”

  “Never mind that,” said Mahmoud. “Let’s get back to when she was on the top deck. She was up there when you last saw her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t she go down with the others?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Had they been quarreling?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You heard them talking.”

  “Well, it was not so much quarreling. I think the Prince was trying to get her to do something. Like, persuade her.”

  “And she didn’t want to?”

  “I couldn’t really tell,” confessed the steersman. “I couldn’t understand the language, see? It was just the impression I got. He wasn’t nasty or anything, not even angry, really. He was just trying—well, to persuade her, like I said.”

  “He didn’t get anywhere, though?”

  “No.”

  “How was she? I mean, was she angry?”

  “I couldn’t really say. You never know what’s going on behind those burkas. You think all’s going well and the next moment—bing! They’ve hit you with something. My wife’s like that.”

  “Were there any tears?”

  “Tears? Well, I don’t know. Not so much tears but you know how they get sometimes, you think they’re going to cry and they don’t, they just keep going on and on. A bit like that.”

  “With the Prince? When he was trying to persuade her?”

  “Yes. And with the girls, too. A bit earlier. Going on and on.”

  “Did they get fed up with her?”

  “They left her alone after a bit. Then the Prince came up and had a try and he didn’t do any better.” He broke off. “Is this helping?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I like to help. Only—all this talking!” He suddenly pounded on the back of the galley with his fist.

  “What’s the matter?” asked the cook, sticking his head out.

  “How about some tea? I’m so dry I can’t speak.”

  “It sounded to me as if you were doing all right. I’d have brought you some before only I didn’t want to interrupt you.”

  He placed a little white enamel cup before each of them and filled it with strong black tea.

  “No sugar,” he said. “You’d think we’d have sugar on board the Prince’s dahabeeyah but we don’t.”

  “It’s that eunuch,” said the steersman. “The stuff never even gets here.”

  “It goes somewhere else, does it?” asked Mahmoud sympathetically.

  “Into his pocket!” said the steersman.

  Mahmoud looked up at the cook.

  “You were here that night, weren’t you? The night the girl disappeared?”

  “Yes. I was just making supper when that stupid eunuch came along making a great commotion.”

  “You left the girl there,” Mahmoud said to the steersman, “and then you came along here. Did you have a cup of tea at that point?”

  “Yes,” said the steersman, “I always have one when I finish.”

  “Tea first, then supper,” said the cook.

  “And you had a cup with him, perhaps?”

  “I did. I always do.”

  “Here? Sitting here?”

  “Yes. Several of us.”

  “And you were still sitting here when the eunuch came?”

  “I was,” said the steersman.

  “I had just got up,” said the cook. “To make the supper.”

  “So whatever it was that happened,” said Mahmoud, “happened while you were sitting here.”

  “I suppose so,” said the steersman. “Well, it must have.”

  “Yes, it must have. And you still say you saw nothing? Heard nothing?”

  “Here, just a minute—!”

  “We weren’t looking!”

  “We were talking!”

  “You would have seen a person. Or—”

  “We didn’t see anything!”

  “Two people. On the cabin roof. Together.”

  “Here!” said the steersman, scrambling to his feet. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m asking,” said Mahmoud. “Did you see two people?”

  “No!”

  “Up there together. Whoever they were.”

  “I didn’t see anything!”

  “None of us saw anything!”

  “Thirty feet away and you saw nothing?”

  “We weren’t looking!”

  “You took care not to look.”

  “We were talking!”

  “And nothing attracted your attention? Someone is attacked—”

  “Attacked!”

  “Or falls. And you know nothing about it? If she’d jumped into the water she’d have made a splash.”

  “A splash? Who hears a splash? There are splashes all the time.”

  “One as big as this? You are boatmen. You would have heard.”

  “Truly!” said the steersman. “I swear to God—”

  “
He hears what you say!” Mahmoud warned him.

  “And sees all that happens. I know. Well, he may have seen what happened to the girl but I didn’t.”

  The steersman showed them off the boat. At the gangway he hesitated and then ran up the bank after them.

  “What was it, then? Was she knocked on the head?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mahmoud.

  “I thought you’d seen the body?”

  “No. It’s not turned up yet.”

  “Oh.” He seemed disappointed. Then he brightened. “Tell you what,” he said, “I know where it will fetch up, more than likely.”

  “Yes?”

  The steersman pointed downriver to where men were working on a scaffolding which stretched out across the river.

  “See that? That’s the new Bulak bridge. That’s where they finish up these days.”

  ***

  They were sharing the boat with a kid goat, a pile of onions and the boatman’s wife, who sat, completely muffled in tob and burka, as far away from them as was possible.

  It had been the steersman’s idea. They had been about to set out for the main bridge when he had said:

  “Are you going back to Bulak? Why don’t you get Hamid to run you over?”

  He had pointed along the bank to where an elderly Arab was standing in the water bent over the gunwale of a small, crazily-built boat. The sides were not so much planks as squares of wood stuck on apparently at hazard. The sail was a small, tattered square sheet.

  “In that? I don’t think so,” said Owen.

  But Mahmoud, fired with enthusiasm for the life marine, was already descending the bank.

  With the two of them on board, the stern dipped until the gunwale was inches above the water. The bows, with the woman and the goat, rose heavenward. The boatman inspected this critically for a moment, but then, unlike Owen, seemed satisfied.

  He perched himself on the edge of the gunwale and took the two ends of the rope in his hands. One he wedged expertly between his toes. The other he wound round his arm.

  The wind caught the sail and he threw himself backwards until the folds of his galabeah were trailing in the water. The boat moved comfortably out into the river.

  Now they were in midstream they could see the new bridge more clearly. There were workmen on the scaffolding and, down at the bottom, a small boat nudging its way along the length of the works.

  The boatman pointed with his head.

  “That’s the police boat,” he said. “It comes every day to pick up the bodies.”

  “Can you take us over there?” asked Mahmoud.

  The boatman scampered across to the opposite gunwale, turned the boat, turned it again and set off on a long glide which took them close in along the bridge.

  “Bring us in to the boat,” said Mahmoud.

  A tall man in the police boat looked up, saw Mahmoud and waved excitedly.

  “Ya Mahmoud!” he called.

  “Ya Selim!” answered Mahmoud warmly.

  A couple of policemen caught the boat as it came in along-side and steadied it. Mahmoud and the other man embraced affectionately.

  “Why, Mahmoud, have you done something sensible at last and joined the river police?”

  “Temporarily; this is my boat.”

  Selim inspected it critically.

  “The boatman’s all right,” he said, “but I’m not so sure about the boat.”

  He shook hands with the boatman.

  “Give me your money,” said the boatman, “and I’ll have a boat as good as yours.”

  “And the Mamur Zapt,” said Mahmoud.

  Selim shook hands again and gave him a second look.

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” said Owen.

  “No. I’ve met Mahmoud, though. We were working on a case last year.” He looked at them again. “The Mamur Zapt and the Parquet,” he said. “This must be important.”

  “It’s the girl,” said Mahmoud. “You’ve received notification, I’m sure.”

  “Pink shintiyan? That the one?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Not come through yet. When did it happen?”

  “The night before last. About three miles upstream.”

  “She’ll have sunk, then. Otherwise she’d have come through by now.”

  Owen looked out along the works. There seemed a lot of water passing through the gaps.

  “Could she have gone through and missed you?”

  “She could. But most of them finish up against the scaffolding. In the old days before we started building the bridge they used to fetch up on a bend about two miles down. That was better for us because it’s in the next district and meant they had to do the work and not us.”

  “Ah, but that meant they missed all the glory, too!”

  “I think the average Chief would prefer to do without the glory!”

  Owen laughed. “We’ve known a few like that!”

  “Yes. We sometimes get the feeling that not all the bodies that come down to us need have done.”

  “You think so?”

  “Sure of it.”

  “It’s important to pick up this one,” said Mahmoud.

  “Yes, I’m checking them myself. We’ve had two women through this week. One of them’s old and one of them’s young, but I don’t think the young one could be the one you’re looking for, not unless she changed her trousers on the way down.”

  “The trousers is about all we’ve got at the moment. I hope to add some details later. Keep the young one just in case.”

  “It’ll be some time before she’s traced and identified anyway. They don’t always come from the city. Sometimes it’s a village upstream.”

  “Well, keep her. Just on the off chance.”

  “If she’s sunk, what then?” asked Owen.

  “Oh, she’ll come up. Gases. In the body. It’ll take a day or two. Then the body comes up and floats on down to us. We get them all in the end.”

  “I hope you get this one.”

  They pushed off. Their boat was now downwind and they had to tack. The boatman tucked up the skirts of his galabeah, hooked his knees over the gunwale and leaned far back over the side. Owen, more confident of his transport now, trailed a hand over the side and turned his face to catch the breeze. Beside him, Mahmoud, hands clasped behind head, was thinking.

  In the bows the boatman’s wife sat muffled from head to foot, invisible behind her veil, anonymous.

  Chapter Three

  “Does this girl have a name?” demanded Zeinab.

  They were lying on cushions in her appartement. Very few single women in Cairo had an appartement of their own, but Zeinab was rich enough and imperious enough and independent enough to insist on one.

  The richness and imperiousness came from her father, Nuri Pasha, not quite one of the Khedive’s family but certainly one of his confidants, not exactly trusted—the Khedive, wisely, trusted nobody—but regularly called upon when the Khedive was reshuffling the greasy pack of his Ministers. Nuri was one of Egypt’s great landowners and the Khedive considered there was sufficient identity of interest between them for him to be able to use Nuri’s services without fear.

  Zeinab was Nuri’s daughter: illegitimate, but that, as he explained, was not his fault. Her mother had been a famous courtesan, doted on by all Cairo but in particular by Nuri, who, though a mature man, had taken the reckless step of proposing that she become his wife and a member of his harem.

  Unaccountably, the lady had refused. She was more than willing—since Nuri was handsome as well as rich—to extend him her embraces; but enter his harem? She was a fiercely proud, independent woman and these qualities had passed in more than abundant measure to her daughter.

  Nuri had gained his way on one thing. Their child had been acknowledged as hi
s daughter and raised in his house, which gave her all the privileges and benefits of belonging to one of Egypt’s leading families. While, admittedly, these were not normally conspicuous in the case of women, for Zeinab they were substantial.

  Like most of the Egyptian upper classes, Nuri was a Francophile. He spoke French by preference, read French books and newspapers and followed French intellectual and cultural fashions rather than Egyptian ones. The culture of educated Egyptians was, anyway, in many respects as much French as it was Egyptian. Mahmoud, for instance, had been educated as a lawyer in the French tradition. The Parquet was French through and through.

  Zeinab had been brought up in this culture. Her father, finding in her many of the qualities he had admired in her mother, had given her far greater freedom from the harem than was normal and from childhood she had sat in on the political and intellectual discussions her father had with his cronies. She came to share many of his interests and tastes and as she grew up she became something of a companion to him.

  All this made Zeinab an interesting woman but a rather unusual one. Men found her formidable and she advanced into her twenties, long past the usual marrying age, without Nuri having received a suitable offer. He began to think of this as a problem.

  It was a problem, however, which Zeinab herself solved. She moved out and set up her own establishment. Nuri, though advanced in his thinking, was rather shocked by this. Shocked but intrigued: was Zeinab taking after her mother?

  Zeinab, however, was merely following up some of the ideas she had met in her father’s own circle. Among his friends were some writers and artists who formed a somewhat Bohemian set. Zeinab, who had strong musical interests, found their company congenial and enjoyed their artistic debates. This talk, too, was very much influenced by French fashions and preoccupations; and from it Zeinab acquired the notion that it was possible for a single woman to set up house on her own.

  She did this and enjoyed it and gradually her father and his friends came to accept it; indeed, not even, any longer, to notice it. And she was living like this when she met Owen.

  The intensity of their relationship surprised them both. Zeinab, alarmed at herself, backed off a little and insisted on maintaining an independent life while she was working out how to handle all this. Owen, equally alarmed, was content to let it rest like that while he tried to see a way through the likely complications. Neither of them was getting very far.