The Point in the Market

by Michael Pearce

‘Thank Christ for that!’ said someone—Wally, presumably.

  ‘It’s over Bert’s!’

  ‘All right, then. Place your bets.’

  ‘Bets on.’

  ‘Okay, then.’

  There was a loud clap, and then, this time, cries of disappointment.

  ‘It didn’t bloody work!’

  ‘The bastard’s gone to sleep!’

  Owen could see now what the game was. You waited until a lizard had got above someone’s bed and then clapped your hands to scare it, and hoped that its tail would fall off on the person below.

  ‘Well, that sod is bloody useless!’ grumbled someone, throwing a coin at the wall. The lizard skittered away.

  ‘Okay, next one.’

  Mrs Cunningham came in through the door.

  ‘Now, boys, what are you up to?’

  ‘Hello, sweetie!’

  ‘Got a fag, sweetie?’

  ‘Now, boys, you know you’re not…’

  ‘She’s bloody useless, too,’ said someone resignedly.

  They turned to Owen. He held up a placatory hand.

  ‘It’s no good asking me,’ he said.

  He went out through the door and along a little corridor. He found Cairns-Grant in a room at the end, slumped, exhausted in a chair, smoking a pipe.

  ‘Need it,’ he said, gesturing at the pipe. ‘Been on since four.’

  ‘I’m really sorry to come bothering you,’ said Owen.

  ‘But,’ said Cairns-Grant.

  ‘That’s right. I’m going to.’

  ‘It’s that autopsy, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Well, I’ve had a look at him, as you asked.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Two knife wounds. Left lower back. The first was what killed him. The second was to make sure.’

  ‘He wanted to make sure, did he?’

  ‘He wanted to do a thorough job.’

  ‘Were there any other wounds? I was wondering, you see, if it could have been a quarrel.’

  ‘It wasn’t a quarrel,’ said Cairns-Grant. ‘It was a job. And done by a real professional. Small entrance wound, strong upward thrust, little bleeding, very quick, no struggle. All over in a flash. As professional a job as I’ve seen,’ said Cairns-Grant, ‘and I’ve seen plenty.’

  ***

  ‘How are you getting along with your spy?’ asked Lawrence, that lunch time, at the Sporting Club.

  ‘Okay,’ said Owen.

  He didn’t really want to talk to the archaeologist but he had been standing alone at the bar when Owen had arrived.

  ‘Getting anything out of him?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘You need to,’ said Lawrence. ‘Something’s getting out to the Turks. I’ve got people over there, you know, and they’ve picked it up. They say information is being fed across.’

  ‘I daresay.’

  ‘No, really, this is a reliable source.’

  ‘Look, Egypt is a neutral country. Or it would be if we let it. It’s an open country, anyway. People are coming and going all the time. Of course, information is getting out. The question is how important it is.’

  ‘This information is coming from someone pretty near the top.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Pretty sure. Going by the examples my informant gave.’

  ‘Well, if that’s true, if that’s true, it could be important, I admit.’

  ‘It could. And especially just now.’ Lawrence bent his head closer to Owen’s. ‘I’m picking up a lot of signs that an attack across the Canal could come at any moment,’ he said quietly. ‘They’ve been bringing up troops. They’re concentrating them in several places so I don’t know where the main attack will be. But I will know, and when I do, I don’t want that getting back to the Turks, so that any advantage we might gain would be lost. We need to find who’s leaking and stop him. That’s why I am asking about that spy of yours. Can’t you get something out of him?’

  ‘I don’t think he knows anything.’

  ‘He must know something.’

  ‘Not about this.’

  ‘Maybe not directly. But he must know something, Owen. Can’t you scare it out of him?’

  ***

  Owen felt guilty as he made his way to Mahmoud’s house that evening: first, because he had not got a real spy and everyone was presuming that he had; secondly, because he ought not to be spending on Yasmin the time that he was spending. Maybe he would be able to wrap it up that evening, or pretty soon afterwards. He hoped so.

  And as he sat on the divan facing Aisha it began to seem quite likely.

  ‘It was easier than I had expected,’ said Aisha. ‘She agreed to come and talk to me. She remembered me, naturally. But it wasn’t that. It was Mahmoud.’

  ‘Me?’ said Mahmoud, astonished.

  ‘She knew I had married him, of course, and she wanted to meet him.’

  ‘I do not understand this,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Why did she know “of course”? Our families do not know each other.’

  ‘Everyone in the school knew,’ said Aisha, ‘certainly in the senior part of it. We all talked about it. We always did when someone was getting married. It was all very exciting. You can just imagine!’

  ‘Really?’ said Mahmoud, surprised, who couldn’t.

  ‘Yes. And all the more so when they heard it was Mahmoud.’

  ‘But why?’ said Mahmoud, genuinely puzzled.

  ‘Because he was so young and handsome.’

  ‘Aisha—’

  ‘Several of the girls there had fathers in the Parquet, you see,’ she said to Owen, ‘and they were not at all young and handsome. They were old and boring and collapsed exhausted on the divan when they got home, and no one could see why anyone would ever want to marry them. But Mahmoud—’

  ‘Aisha, I really do not know why you are saying these things.’

  ‘—was much more glamorous. I think they were all in love with him.’

  ‘Aisha, really—’

  ‘And I think Yasmin admired him especially. Because of his work for the Nationalist cause. Young and glamorous, and Nationalist!’

  ‘Please, Aisha!’

  ‘I think she had worshipped him for a long time in secret. He was her hero. So when I asked her to come and see me, she jumped at the chance. But it was not because of me, alas, it was because she wanted to meet him.’

  ‘This is conjecture, Aisha,’ said Mahmoud uncomfortably.

  ‘And, to be fair, because I think she saw this as the great breakthrough. The Nationalist Party would take up her cause, Mahmoud would defend her—’

  ‘Please!’

  ‘She would become a martyr for the cause and die. Happily.’

  ‘Aisha, I do feel you should have disabused her of these foolish ideas.’

  ‘I tried, I tried. I pointed out that my husband was a member of the Department of Prosecutions and therefore could not appear for the defence. I said that while the Nationalist Party would be delighted by her enthusiasm, they might well wish to choose for themselves the issues they made a stand on. I could see, however, that I was not taking her with me. I even sounded old to myself!’

  ‘She is just a foolish child!’ said Mahmoud warmly.

  ‘We-ll….’

  ‘I do not know what her father is doing, letting her do these things!’

  ‘I don’t know that he’s had a great deal to say in it so far,’ said Owen.

  Aisha was silent.

  ‘So you didn’t really get anywhere?’

  ‘Well, perhaps I did. In the end. I had asked her about her family. How were they taking it, I asked? Very badly, she said. They couldn’t understand it, or her, at all. Her father especially. He tried, but he and she were too far apart. She could se
e his point of view but he couldn’t see hers. He belonged to a previous generation, she said, you know, all loyalty to the Khedive. He couldn’t see that things had moved on, and that all that had failed. He was hurt when she said so. She said that she didn’t want to hurt him, that she loved him, really, but that surely she had to say and do what she believed to be right? I said, yes, but it was how you said it that was important. And perhaps how you did it.’

  She fell silent again.

  ‘Well?’ said Mahmoud.

  Aisha shrugged.

  ‘Well, then she collapsed into tears and said perhaps she hadn’t said it right. Well, I said, perhaps we can work on that. So, well,’ she shrugged again. ‘We’re going to meet once more.’

  ‘Aisha, I think you’re a marvel!’ said Owen.

  ‘Well, maybe.’ She was silent. ‘Maybe.’

  She looked at Owen. ‘I think I can persuade her,’ she said, ‘not to insist on going to court. Not to push things too far. But if I do, it will not be because of me but because of the love and respect she feels for her family. Egyptian girls are like that, despite what they might think. They feel very strongly for their family. The family is very important to us. More important, perhaps, than it is to English people. To go against it is hard, to hurt it—well, almost unthinkable.

  ‘Yasmin knows that if she insists on going to court, it will hurt her father deeply. It will mean the disappointment of all the hopes he had for her. She is the clever one of the family. So her father has invested everything in her—sent her to a good school, even though she is a girl. They had hoped that she would go on to train as a teacher. She will not be able to, of course, if she is known to be in trouble with the police. It is for this reason—not because of her own hopes, I think, she would be prepared to sacrifice them, but her father’s hopes—that I think she would agree to be persuaded.’

  ‘Well, that is good,’ said Mahmoud. ‘That is right. She should honour her father’s wishes.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Aisha, ‘but I think it is right for her, too. Anyone as intelligent as she is should be looking for something more in life than just marriage. It would be good for her to take up a career—good not just for her but for Egypt.’

  Mahmoud didn’t say anything for a moment or two. Then he said:

  ‘You think that, Aisha, do you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  He was silent for a little while, and then said:

  ‘Do you think that of yourself, too, Aisha?’

  ‘I think I may think it in a few years’ time,’ said Aisha. ‘But, just at the moment,’ she said, smiling, ‘I’ve got something else on my mind.’

  Owen started to get up from the divan. Aisha put up her hand.

  ‘Wait,’ she said, ‘I have something to ask you from Yasmin. She would like you to speak to her father. Before she does. She thinks that might help. She says he listens to you. She cannot think why he should listen to an Englishman. She thinks it may be because you are old, too.’

  Chapter Nine

  Owen’s orderly came in.

  ‘Effendi,’ he said, ‘that violent woman is here again.’

  ‘Sabri’s wife?’

  Owen got up quickly.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She waits below. She will not come in.’

  As they went along the corridor, the orderly said:

  ‘She is calm this morning, Effendi. But it may not last. Do not go too close to her. It could break out at any moment.’

  She had her son with her.

  ‘Salah,’ she said, ‘come forward.’

  The boy was carrying something in his hands, a package wrapped in cloth. He bowed shyly, then offered it to Owen.

  Owen unfolded the cloth. Inside was a woman’s headband, a circlet of woven material with little gold coins suspended from it.

  ‘This is beautiful!’ he said. He turned it over in his hands. ‘Not from round here, surely?’ he said, puzzled.

  ‘It is Senussi,’ said the woman. ‘Sabri brought it back.’

  ‘He brought it back for you.’ Owen tried to hand it back. ‘This is too fine for me,’ he said. ‘He meant it for you. Keep it.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘You have a wife, I know.’

  ‘It is a kind and generous gift. But too much.’

  ‘It is not as much as my son’s life is to me.’

  He tried to persuade her to take it back but couldn’t.

  ‘It is for you,’ she insisted. ‘Sabri would have wanted it so. This is precious, yes. The Senussi—there were lots of Senussi this time—did not want to let him have it and he had to give gold. But not as precious as his son.’

  He could only thank her.

  ‘I shall treasure this,’ he said. ‘It will remind me of Sabri and his people.’

  He sent for water and dates and sat down with them in the courtyard to share them.

  ‘You must have set out early this morning,’ he said.

  ‘Not so early. Hosain lent us his donkey.’

  ‘There are still donkeys in the village?’

  The woman laughed.

  ‘Anji—you remember Anji? The donkey barber?—was down in the village and he told Hosain that the Levantine was coming, and Hosain took his donkey out to the shrine—there is a shrine in the desert near us—and left it there. And when the Levantine came, Hosain pretended he hadn’t got a donkey.’

  ‘Well, it was useful to you this morning.’

  Owen asked if he could have a private word with Salah. He led him to a place where they could sit down in the shade and said:

  ‘Salah, your father was a man who could walk by himself and I want you to be a man like that, too. Your father did not heed what others said, nor should you. So when men say that you should resent your father’s death, do not listen to them.’

  He could sense the boy’s demurral.

  ‘Your father was my man, Salah, and I think now that he died on my business. It is my quarrel as well as yours, and since he died on my behalf, it is my quarrel first. Understand?’

  ‘All right,’ said the boy reluctantly. ‘It is your quarrel first. But if you do not pursue it, or—’ his face brightened—‘if they kill you, then it will fall to me.’

  ***

  Zeinab had received an invitation to the Princess Samira’s. She was pleased about this. Samira was a friend of hers: a former friend, she had been coming to think. It was nice to know that she had not altogether been cut off, and the confidence flowed back into her.

  Owen was pleased too. He had been worried about her. He had not expected it would be quite so hard for her, not really believed that she would be quite so totally shunned by her friends. He had seen its effect on her. His recent conversations with Aisha had put Aisha in his mind and he couldn’t help contrasting the two. Aisha only a few months before had been a shy school girl, stunned by the poised, cosmopolitan Zeinab. She had blossomed so much since her marriage that now it was Zeinab who was the silent, awkward one.

  He had been impressed by the maturity Aisha had shown over Yasmin, her ability to stand apart and see her detachedly as through the eyes of one much older and more experienced, even though she and Yasmin were in fact less than two years apart in age.

  Zeinab, he couldn’t help being aware, had lately drawn more and more in on herself. He and she were still close, he was sure of that, it was on the other side of her, as it were, that she was withdrawing. It was if she was developing a protective shell, something that would allow her to shrug off coldness and rejection; a necessary protective mechanism, perhaps, but one that made her a lesser person.

  It was beginning to worry him and he was pleased now that something was calling her out of herself and back into the warm orbit of the circles she had been part of.

  ***

  It seemed to Owen that Egyp
t’s centre of gravity was shifting eastwards. Every morning now the Ismailiya road was blocked with people, animals, and vehicles flooding east to the Canal. Great convoys of soldiers and of the things and people necessary to support them set out across the bridge every day: as well as of people and things quite unnecessary and which were merely getting in the way. Half the city’s hawkers and pedlars seemed already to have deserted the hotels; the flow of fruit and vegetables, not to mention fodder for the camels and the donkeys, was no longer into the city but out towards the camps on the Canal.

  Among the marchers there were now little groups of fellahin carrying their traditional wooden picks and shovels over their shoulders. Following the meeting of the Committee the other day, the extension of the Egyptian Labour Corps had indeed been decreed, and these were the first of the new recruits. Although conscription had been announced, it would take time to implement it, and they were there less because they had been obliged than because they had been drawn by the announcement of good wages with which the Government had thoughtfully accompanied the measure.

  Later groups, thought Owen, would not be so willing.

  It concerned him, not just because he didn’t think that the policy was the right one, but because, with all the soldiers over at the Canal, he could just see who was going to be responsible for enforcing it.

  He voiced his concern at the next meeting of the Committee.

  ‘No, no, it won’t be you,’ said Paul. ‘The omda will provide a list and then the police will go round collecting them.’

  ‘Like the donkeys,’ said one of the officers helpfully.

  ‘Will the omda provide a list, when he knows that if he does, he won’t ever again be able to go out on a dark night? Will the fellahin be there when the police arrive? Will the police arrive at all? Half of them are over at the Canal, trying to keep the pedlars off the premises.’

  ‘I think you’re being unnecessarily pessimistic, Owen.’

  ‘Yes, well, I don’t think so. There won’t be a soldier in the place, apart from those at the Canal. What happens if there’s trouble?’

  ‘You can put it down, surely, Owen?’

  ‘Big trouble. Twenty villages in Minya province. Fifty in two other provinces simultaneously. Just me and Selim.’