The Last Cut

by Michael Pearce

‘It would have been difficult. The daughter of a water-carrier! He would have been very angry.’

  ‘All the same—’

  ‘I would have tried. We agreed that was best. Only—’

  ‘Only what?’

  ‘One day she told me her father was going to marry her to Omar Fayoum.’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘But he’s old! And foul! And not really very rich. All he does is run a water-cart. Well, that may look good to a water-carrier but it’s nothing really. I thought I would go to him and say, look, you can do better than that. I have a job at the Water Board, and if you will only wait—But Leila said no, the fates were against us, and I said, let us defy fate—’

  Owen groaned again; inaudibly, he hoped.

  Mahmoud, however, became fierce.

  ‘Did you touch her?’ he demanded.

  ‘No! I would never show her any disrespect, never—’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Never! Never! I was honourable, she was honourable. She was always honourable. She—’

  The boy dissolved in tears.

  ‘All right, all right. All right!’

  ‘Never!’ sobbed the boy.

  ‘All right! So what did you do?’

  ‘Do?’ The boy looked at him in surprise. ‘We didn’t do anything.’

  ‘You must have done something. What happened next?’

  ‘Nothing. Leila said we must stop seeing each other now that she was betrothed.’

  ‘So—?’

  ‘So we stopped seeing each other.’

  ‘Come on, you don’t expect me to believe that!’

  ‘Just the once. I said I had to see her, she owed it to me. And then—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I pleaded with her. I pleaded with her for hours. But she said no, she was betrothed, it was different now, and we must stop seeing each other.’

  ‘And what about the next time?’

  ‘There was no next time.’

  ‘You just went away?’

  ‘No. Not at first. I—I hung around. But she wouldn’t see me. And in the end—yes, I went away. The fates were against us!’

  ‘And you never saw her again?’

  ‘Never. I wanted to, but—Then one day I heard.’

  ‘That—?’

  ‘That she was dead.’

  ‘How did you hear?’

  ‘My work brings me down in these parts sometimes. I went into a shop to buy some oranges and I heard the women talking.’

  ‘And then you went away again?’

  ‘What else was there to do?’ the boy said.

  ***

  After the boy had gone, they talked to the woman.

  No, she said, she hadn’t done it, although she knew who had. It had all been very difficult because there was no mother to act on Leila’s behalf. If there had been, all this wouldn’t have happened. Leila would have been circumcised years before.

  ‘But that fool of a father—’

  The mother had died soon after they arrived in Cairo and the father had not married again.

  ‘That was a mistake; the girl needed a mother.’

  They were, of course, desperately poor. The father had been a simple water-carrier. It was one of the humblest jobs in the city. All you needed was a water-skin. Then you would go down to the river, fill it and then walk through the streets offering it for a millieme or two to the thirsty.

  From a very early age Leila had had to take on the duties of the woman in the house, cleaning, cooking, carrying—even the water had to be fetched. From an early age, too, each day she had taken her father’s lunch to him.

  ‘Too much for him to carry, I suppose,’ said Um Fattouha tartly. ‘Though you’d have thought he’d have got used to carrying.’

  With no woman in the house, Leila had been almost indispensable to him.

  ‘That’s why he wouldn’t let her marry. It’s not that there weren’t inquiries. There’s plenty of mothers who wouldn’t mind their son marrying someone who worked hard and didn’t complain.’

  But of course he had known that he would have to let her go at some time. You could always get a woman in to do the housework. A marriageable woman, though, was worth something more than just her labour. The trouble was that she was a depreciating asset and the longer you left it, the less she would fetch.

  ‘So when old Fayoum came along, he had to do some hard thinking. Well, it wasn’t that hard. Fayoum was worth a bit—well, to a water-carrier, anyway. There was a chance, too, they say, of a job on the cart itself, and when you’re getting old, that’s the kind of job you fancy. So he didn’t have to think too long.’

  It was only when they began to think about the wedding—and there were plenty of women in the street who were ready to help him think about the wedding—that the problem was spotted.

  It arose when they began to think about the wedding night itself and were making arrangements for the depilation.

  ‘Old Fayoum’s not going to like that,’ they said. ‘He’ll think there’s something wrong.’

  So they went to see Leila’s father.

  ‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘There’s still plenty of time. Just get on with it.’

  It was here, though, that opinions had begun to diverge, for some of the women hadn’t liked it.

  ‘She’s too old,’ they said. ‘Since it’s got to this stage, it’s best left as it is.’

  But Leila’s father had been adamant.

  ‘Now it had got so far, he didn’t want anything to go wrong. He was counting on that job on the cart, you see.’

  A number of the women who had been approached had been unwilling to do it. Um Fattouha herself had refused.

  ‘I might have done it better than that old bitch,’ she said, ‘but even if it had gone right, there would still have been problems, wouldn’t there? At her age it would have taken time to heal. Just think of the wedding night if she wasn’t ready!’

  In the end, though, someone had been found and the operation performed.

  ‘Well, it went wrong from the start. There was that much blood! Or so I hear.’

  Leila had never recovered. She had lingered on for a few days and then died.

  ‘And that old bastard was too mean even to bury her properly!’ said Um Fattouha indignantly. ‘He just threw her into the Canal like a bit of old rubbish!’

  ***

  The swollen river lay uneasily within its banks. Even in the last day or two it had risen noticeably. Now as you walked along the embankment the water was lapping at your feet. The launch came right in to the bank. Owen hardly needed to step down. Along the banks the women were doing their washing, their silver anklets flashing in the sun. Further along, the buffaloes were lying in the water like hippopotami. The great stretch of the barrage rose up ahead of them.

  Ferguson was waiting at the landing stage.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘it’s full. And when it’s full, it’s never still. It’s straining, you see, straining to break out. And when it presses, it finds all the weak spots.’

  They walked through the Gardens to the engineers’ office, built out of the same sun-baked clay as the houses of the workmen further down the canal. In the early days they had built it of wood but then had found that wood was much hotter than clay, particularly when the walls were thick and the windows small.

  Macrae was sitting at a table bent over a drawing. Overhead a fan was whirring. He looked up and pushed the drawing away.

  ‘So you’ve come,’ he said.

  ‘I came as soon as I got your message,’ said Owen.

  ‘Aye,’ said Macrae. He seemed unenthusiastic; even cast down.

  ‘We’d better have some coffee,’ he said. ‘This is a bad one.’

  He went to the door and called. A boy, who had
clearly been waiting, promptly appeared with a tray. He set it down on the table with a beam of white teeth.

  Neither Ferguson nor Macrae were beaming.

  ‘Well,’ said Macrae abruptly, ‘you were right. It was one of our own.’

  Ferguson shook his head.

  ‘We told you we’d put it to them about the tools. “Someone must have had tools,” we said. “And if anyone brought a tool kit in with them one day, the chances are that one of you would have seen it. Now, we’re all in this together—it’s like the village back at home—and if you saw it, you must tell us. Otherwise it could happen again!” Well, that’s what we said, and then we left them with it. They like to talk these things over, you see, among themselves. One of them would never come to us on his own. They’re all part of the group, and it’s what the group decides. We just left it to them and, well, this morning they came back to us.’

  ‘With a name?’

  ‘Aye. Babikr.’

  ‘I’d never have thought it of him!’ said Ferguson.

  ‘It just shows how you can be deceived in people,’ said Macrae.

  ‘Aye.’

  They drank their coffee dispiritedly.

  ‘He’s always been quiet!’

  ‘I thought he just liked to get on with it.’

  ‘Well, he does like to get on with it. We’ve never had any complaints, have we?’

  Ferguson shook his head.

  ‘Babikr!’ he said bitterly.

  ‘They gave you his name?’ said Owen.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Does he know? That they’ve given his name?’

  ‘Must do.’

  ‘Then he’ll be off unless we—Where is he?’

  ‘They’ll be down by the regulator.’

  The men were taking their morning break. They were sitting up on the bank, unusually quiet.

  There was no need to ask about Babikr. He was sitting apart from the others, his knees drawn up to his chin, arms round them, head bowed.

  Owen went up to him.

  ‘Babikr,’ he said, ‘you must come with me.’

  ***

  ‘You know why I have taken you?’

  ‘Yes, Effendi.’

  ‘You broke into the store?’

  ‘Yes, Effendi.’

  ‘And took the dynamite?’

  ‘Yes, Effendi.’

  ‘And what did you do with it?’

  ‘I put it beside the gate. In the culvert.’

  ‘And detonated it?’

  Babikr nodded his head wordlessly.

  ‘Why, Babikr?’

  Babikr shook his head.

  ‘Was it because of something Macrae Effendi had done to you?’

  ‘No, no, Effendi—’

  ‘Or Ferguson Effendi?’

  ‘No, Effendi,’ said Babikr, distressed.

  ‘Someone else, perhaps? Here at the barrage?’

  The man shook his head.

  ‘Or in the Department?’

  Again the shake.

  ‘Why then, Babikr?’

  He waited a while and then repeated the question. The man did not reply.

  ‘No one does a thing like this without reason,’ said Owen. ‘What was your reason?’

  Babikr just tightened his lips.

  ‘Perhaps something bad had been done to you?’

  Babikr shook his head firmly.

  ‘No, Effendi. It was not that.’

  ‘Then what was it?’

  ‘The Effendis have always been good to me.’

  ‘Someone else?’

  ‘No one else.’

  Owen sat back bewildered.

  ‘Is it that you are angry against the Khedive?’

  ‘The Khedive?’

  It was almost as if the man had never heard of him.

  ‘Or the British, perhaps? Come, man, you may say it.’ Owen smiled. ‘There are plenty who are.’

  Babikr shook his head.

  ‘You are not—?’ Owen wondered how to put it. With a more educated man he might have said ‘a Nationalist’. Or if uneducated, in Cairo he might have asked whether he was a member of one of the ‘clubs’. Or even of one of the gangs. But this man was a simple fellah, up, for a while, from the country.

  ‘You are not, perhaps, a follower of Mustapha Kamil?’

  Mustapha Kamil had been for a time the charismatic leader of the Nationalist movement. He was now dead but many nationalistically-minded Egyptians still identified with him. At least they would have heard of him. Babikr, however, clearly had not.

  ‘But why did you do it, Babikr? Surely you can say?’

  Babikr, however, could, or would, not. In the end, Owen shrugged and let it rest. The man had confessed. That was all that was needed.

  It would be helpful, though, to have some corroborative evidence. He asked the man about breaking into the stores. On this he was quite prepared to talk. Yes, he had come in one night and cut the hole. He described it so circumstantially as to put it beyond doubt that he had done it. Vague, as all fellahin, about dates, he was not able to specify the day. It had not been the same day as he had blown up the regulator. It would have been too much for one day.

  He had hidden the dynamite for a night or two in a disused gadwal before taking it to the regulator and using it.

  And his tool-kit?

  Here Babikr needed no encouragement to talk. It had been stolen.

  Stolen?

  Yes, that very night. In the Gardens. While he was taking the dynamite to its hiding-place. It had been too much to carry both it and the tool-kit so he had hidden the tool-kit temporarily, intending to come back for it. When he had done so, he had been unable to find it. He had come back again the following morning, thinking he had just made a mistake about the place, and had looked for it thoroughly. In the end he had been forced to realize that somebody had taken it.

  ‘While I was there, Effendi, in the Gardens. In the Gardens! I tell you, Effendi, there are thieves everywhere!’

  ***

  There were, indeed, and Owen had a pretty good idea of one of them. He sent for the ghaffir.

  The ghaffir denied it vehemently.

  ‘Would I do a thing like that, Effendi?’

  ‘Almost certainly.’

  The ghaffir still denied it. Owen had his house searched. A small saw was found which Babikr identified as his. He asked after the rest of the tools. After some prevarication the ghaffir admitted he had sold them. Owen sent men to recover them.

  The ghaffir changed tack.

  He had done it, he said, only to punish the intruder.

  ‘You can leave punishment to me,’ said Owen, and detailed the consequences that would follow if he had any more trouble from the ghaffir.

  ‘So,’ said Owen, ‘you were watching all the time?’

  Not all the time, said the ghaffir. The workman had already started when he got there. As he was coming through the trees, quietly, he had heard suspicious noises.

  ‘Then, Effendi, I crept. I feared there might be many, and I, but one. So I went forward with circumspection. And, lo, there was a man crouched at the back of the hut.’

  ‘Crouched? Not lying down? I thought he had made a burrow?’

  ‘No, no, that was the Lizard Man. He came later.’

  ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘No, no, Effendi. That would have been very unwise.’

  ‘But you did see a man crouching?’

  ‘Yes, Effendi. And I lay there and watched him. And after a while he stopped working and crawled through into the store to see that all was well for the Lizard Man. Then he came out and gathered his tools and took them and hid them in a gadwal. And then he went off into the trees.’

  ‘Carrying something?’

  ‘I
could not see, Effendi. The night was dark. And I thought, I shall play a trick on him. To punish him. Yes, that’s right. To punish him. So I stole forward and found the tools and took them away with me. Ho, ho, I thought, that will teach you a lesson!’

  ‘Fair is fair,’ said Owen, ‘and if you take mine, I take yours. Is that it?’

  The ghaffir looked at him, surprised.

  ‘Well, yes, Effendi. That was it, more or less.’

  ‘And you did not think to seize the man?’

  ‘Well, no, Effendi. He was bigger than I.’

  ‘Were you not armed?’

  ‘Ah, yes, Effendi. But so might he be.’

  ‘Nor did you think of reporting it the next morning?’

  ‘By then, Effendi, it was surely water under the bridge.’

  ‘And, besides, you had the tools?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘And thought, no doubt, that was punishment enough?’

  ‘Exactly so, Effendi,’ agreed the ghaffir, relieved.

  Owen had one last question.

  ‘You know the workmen; and you saw the man. Which of them was it?’

  After some hum-ing and haw-ing, the ghaffir identified Babikr.

  ‘Well, that clinches it,’ said Macrae.

  ‘Aye,’ said Ferguson despondently.

  ‘Ye’d never have thought it.’

  ‘One of ours!’

  ‘I still can’t understand it. Why would he do a thing like that?’

  ‘You think you know them,’ said Ferguson, shaking his head.

  ‘Well, you do know them,’ said Owen. ‘You reckoned that if you put it to them, they’d come out with it. And you were right.’

  ‘Aye. There is that.’

  ‘Still, one of ours—!’

  ‘What I can’t understand,’ said Macrae, ‘is how he could bring himself to do it. You’ve met our men,’ he appealed to Owen, ‘you can see what sort of men they are. Now, would they do a thing like that?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘No more would he. At least, that’s what I would have said.’

  ‘Someone must have got at him,’ said Ferguson.

  ‘Aye. That’s what I’m thinking. And do you know what more I’m thinking? I’m thinking that it’s not over yet. If they can turn one good man, they can turn another. They might try it again. I shan’t feel happy till I know what’s behind this.’ He looked at Owen. ‘I hope you weren’t thinking of stopping?’