The Mingrelian Conspiracy mz-9

by Michael Pearce

  Owen came to a halt. He had thought at first that this was merely an ordinary traffic dispute, caused, say, by a man carrying a bed on a donkey, the donkey, small, the bed big and lying flat on the donkey’s back, the ends protruding across the street, the man, again, big, sitting on top of the bed, meeting, say, a forage camel, grumpy, huge loads of berseem slung on either side of its back, so huge that they, too, spread out across the street, both animals unwieldy and neither driver able, or inclined, to go back, the exchange of insults egged on by admiring onlookers, developing partisanship and, in no time at all, tumult. Despite the ferocity of the rhetoric and the postures that the would-be combatants took up, such things usually sorted themselves out peacefully when everybody had had their fun. But this looked different. The blood-

  Or was it blood? And were the missiles stones? Or were they-yes, tomatoes! From the upset stall, perhaps. Thrown in rage-was that right? — by the offended stall owner? What was all this about?

  At the heart of the dispute there appeared to be two men, held back by supporters but straining to throw themselves on each other, insults streaming through foaming lips.

  Owen pushed his way through the throng and came out beside them. He found himself in front of an Arab coffee house, the owner of which, his face perspiring profusely, was trying desperately to pacify the two men.

  ‘What is all this?’ said Owen sternly.

  The proprietor grabbed at him with relief.

  ‘Effendi! Oh, Effendi, these two men-!’

  Owen turned on them.

  ‘Stop that!’ he barked. ‘Any more nonsense from you and you’ll be in the caracol!’

  One of them quietened down. The other went on shouting. Owen caught him by the folds of his galabeeyah.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ he said threateningly. ‘I said quieten down!’

  He lifted the man up on to his toes and shook him.

  ‘That’s better.’ He released the man. ‘Now, what’s all this about?’

  The crowd calmed down. The proprietor pushed forward. ‘Effendi, these two men-scoundrels, rascals, vagabonds! They started it.’

  The two men turned on him in unison.

  ‘Liar! Thief! You started it!’

  ‘ I started it?’ said the proprietor, stepping back hurriedly.

  ‘Yes, you started it. Everything was all right until you started mucking about!’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that-’ began the other man.

  ‘I just thought it was time for a change, that’s all!’ said the proprietor, sweating.

  ‘Well, you’ve got change, haven’t you?’ said one of the protagonists belligerently. ‘Him, or me?’

  ‘Isn’t that enough?’ demanded the other man.

  ‘Well, no. It’s either him or it’s you. Either Abu Zeyd or Sultan Baybars.’

  Owen saw now that both men were storytellers.

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘I’m telling you. People would like a change.’

  ‘In the stories of Abu Zeyd there is inexhaustible variety.’

  ‘Well, not quite inexhaustible-’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ said the other man swiftly. ‘They are a bit the same. Whereas the stories of Sultan Baybars-’

  ‘We’ve heard them all before,’ said the proprietor, wiping his face. ‘We want new ones.’

  ‘New ones!’

  ‘Well, yes, new ones. Now, this new fellow-’

  ‘A charlatan!’

  ‘A fake!’

  ‘No art!’

  ‘No feeling!’

  ‘Yes, but they’re new. We’ve not heard the stories before. He’s got a bit of imagination, this bloke has.’

  ‘Imagination!’

  ‘You don’t want imagination. What you want is tradition. You want to know where you are.’

  ‘Isn’t there room for you all?’ asked Owen. ‘One of you one day, the other the next?’

  ‘Ah, that’s how it starts. But then you get somebody else in, and then another, and before you know where you are, your livelihood’s gone. You’ve got to make a stand!’

  ‘There’s too many coming into the profession, if you ask me. Every time you go to a cafe these days you’ve got competition.’

  ‘And it’s not from people you know, it’s from these new men!’

  ‘Upstarts!’

  ‘No tradition!’

  ‘No training!’

  ‘Stories from the gutter!’

  ‘They undermine the dignity of the profession!’

  ‘Dignity!’ said the proprietor. ‘You lot?’

  ‘One day, Rice Pudding went up on to the roof to hang out the washing and when she had finished, she sat down among the bean plants to rest from her labours. Fancying herself concealed, she took off her veil to cool her face. Now it so happened that in the house next to hers, there lived a handsome youth who, that very afternoon, had gone up on to the roof to air himself among the tomato plants and cucumber flowers and melons. He should have been happy but he was sad at heart. He took two melons in his hands.’

  ‘ “Alas,” he said, “these are warm and round and inviting as the breasts of a beautiful maiden. But where is there a beautiful maiden for me?”

  ‘At that very moment he looked across the roof and saw Rice Pudding sitting in her bower.’

  ‘He let the melons fall.

  ‘ “Light of my life!” he said. “Delight of my days! Hope of my heart! Dream of my dreams!”

  ‘Unfortunately, in his ecstasy, he spoke so loudly that Rice Pudding heard him and took fright.

  ‘ “You have seen what you should not have seen,” she said, and ran back down below.

  ‘Every day after that the youth went up on to the roof and hid among the tomato plants and hoped that Rice Pudding would come again. For many days she did not but then one day, when it was very hot, she said to herself. “Oh, how I would like to cool my face! Surely, if I sit among the bean plants he will not see me?” ’

  ‘These women!’ said Selim from the doorway. ‘Talk themselves into anything!’

  Some women in the crowd hushed him indignantly. The storyteller gave him a cold look and then went on:

  ‘So she went up on to the roof and sat among the bean flowers. And after a while she took off her veil. The youth could not contain himself.

  ‘ “Flower among the flowers!” he called. “Beauty among the beautiful! Bestow the brilliance of your eyes upon him who worships you!”

  ‘Rice Pudding started up with surprise.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ said Selim. ‘I’ll bet!’

  The storyteller paused ostentatiously but then allowed himself to be persuaded to continue.

  ‘ “What is this?” she said. “A man’s voice? A man’s eyes!” And she made to rush from the roof.

  ‘ “Stay!” cried the youth. “Oh, stay! Heart of my heart, take not your light from me! All I ask is permission to woo thee honourably!”

  ‘ “Alas!” said Rice Pudding. “That can never be!”

  ‘ “My house is honourable, my family rich. How, then, can your father object?”

  ‘ “It is not that,” said Rice Pudding sadly. “It is not that.” ’

  The repetition, delivered in a faltering cadence, was felt by his audience to be a fine touch. It murmured appreciatively. Even Selim was impressed.

  ‘ “What then can it be?”

  ‘ “I have lost,” said Rice Pudding, “that which I would have kept.” ’

  ‘Already?’ said Selim, aghast. ‘The bitch!’

  ‘ “My name,” said Rice Pudding, “has been taken from me.”

  ‘ “Your good name? But-?”

  ‘ “ Not my good name,” said Rice Pudding, a little crossly. “My name. My actual name. It ran away.”

  ‘ “I am bemused,” said the youth.

  ‘ “Well, that is understandable,” said Rice Pudding kindly. “But you can see the difficulty.”

  ‘ “If that is all,” said the youth, recovering, “then it is n
othing. I will go out and find the name. And when I find it, I will return it to you. What is yours will be yours. But after that I shall marry you. And then what is yours will be mine.” ’

  ‘Oh, very good!’ said Selim, applauding vigorously. The crowd, too, was much taken by the rhetorical inversions.

  The storyteller bowed acknowledgement, got up off the mastaba, and sent a boy round with the bowl.

  ‘Tell me, Mustapha,’ said Owen, sipping his coffee, ‘how did you come to get a storyteller such as this? For he is neither an Abu Zeyd man nor a Sultan Baybars man.’

  ‘He’s all right, isn’t he? Good for business. A bit different.’

  ‘How did you come by him?’

  ‘Well, I was sitting in here one day when a man came in, an effendi, like yourself. At that time I had one of the old storytellers, an Abu Zeyd man, I think he was. Well, this effendi listened to his story and afterwards he beckoned me over.

  ‘ “A cafe like this which is going somewhere,” he said, “needs something a bit different. Have you ever thought of getting a new storyteller?” “Well,” I said, “they’re all the same, really, aren’t they? The stories are all the same and they don’t amount to much. To tell the truth, I hardly listen to them nowadays.” “That’s just the point,” he said. “You don’t listen to them and nor does anybody else. They’re hardly a draw, are they? Now suppose you got somebody telling new stories; they’d come and listen to him, wouldn’t they?” “Well, they might,” I said, “but really what they come here for is coffee and a bit of chat, a bit of company, you know, and a breath of cool air.”

  ‘Well, he laughed at that. “All the same,” he said, “you could do with a new attraction. Bring in one or two more.” Well, you know, there was something in what he said. Business builds up for a bit, you know, and then it stagnates. “I could put you in touch with someone,” he said. “Abdul Hosein wouldn’t like that,” I said-Abdul was the storyteller I had at the time, the one that we’d just been listening to. “Whose money are we talking about?” he said. “His or yours?”’

  ‘And so Abdul Hosein went?’ said Owen.

  ‘He certainly did. Kicked up a bit of a fuss about it. Said he had friends who wouldn’t like it. I mentioned that to the new storyteller. “I’ve got friends, too,” he said, and smiled. “Yes,” I said, “but how many? He’s an Abu Zeyd man and there’re a lot of them.” “There’s a lot of me, too,” he said. “We’re a new lot. We’re growing fast. You don’t want to get stuck with the old lot, not now, when the competition’s hotting up.” He had something there. Anyway, I kept him on.’

  ‘This effendi, what sort of man was he?’

  ‘Small, very polite.’

  ‘English?’

  ‘No, no.’ Mustapha hesitated. ‘It’s hard to say. None of the usual ones. Not Greek. Not Turk. Somewhere over there, though.’

  Owen guessed he was hearing about Katarina’s father. He had hitherto, without thinking about it, put him down as a bookish man. Sorgos had given the impression that he lacked spirit. Was it just that his spirit expressed itself in ways other than the old man’s nationalism?

  ‘Djugashvili,’ said Georgiades. ‘Friend of Sorgos, friend of the man working on the ikons, friend of quite a lot of people down in the Der. Came to Cairo only six years ago. Left Georgia in a hurry after some trouble with the Russians.’

  ‘What was the trouble?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. There was a sort of Nationalist movement, anti-Russian, of course, and he was involved. How far it got, I don’t know, but he’s much admired, down in the Der, as a man of action.’

  ‘Sorgos likes men of action,’ said Owen.

  ‘They need money,’ said Nikos. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? We know they were having difficulty in finding it-Nicodemus said so. Well, time is running out. They’ve got to find it quickly. So they’ve had to turn to this.’

  ‘Commissioning a gang to get it for them?’

  ‘Why not? We’ve said all along they’re amateurs. It’s the first time they’ve done anything like this. Want money? How about a spot of protection? Don’t know how to go about it? How about someone who does?’

  ‘And you find someone near to you, a gang in the Fustat, and you approach them through an intermediary because you don’t know any gangs yourself. I can see all that: but what I don’t see is how they are paying for it. If it’s with money, that destroys the object.’

  ‘Favours. The world runs on favours. Especially the Arab world.’

  ‘The gang owes this fellow Hussein a favour, OK, and that’s why they’re doing it. But what is Hussein getting? What can Sorgos and the others give him?’

  ‘Maybe they don’t have to give him anything. Maybe he’s returning a favour too.’

  ‘And they’re just calling it in?’

  ‘That’s right. They’re owed the favour and they’re exchanging it for cash. This way.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Owen, ‘but-’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Why do they have to do it this way? Why go in for all the complication? Why do they have to use explosives? Why not use a bullet? It would be much simpler.’

  Nikos and Georgiades looked at each other. Both shrugged.

  ‘Does it matter?’ asked Georgiades. ‘So long as that’s the way they are doing it.’

  ‘No,’ Owen admitted.

  ‘That certainly seems the way they’re committed to,’ said Nikos. ‘Sorgos is still rushing around desperately trying to buy gold and the only reason I can see for that is that it’s crucial to them if they want to get their hands on the explosives in time.’

  ‘No money,’ said Georgiades, ‘no explosives!’

  ‘That being so,’ said Nikos, ‘isn’t the next step obvious?’

  Chapter 10

  'My young friend from the mountains!’ cried Sorgos.

  ‘Not this time,’ said Owen; ‘the Mamur Zapt.’

  Sorgos’s smile disappeared.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘It has come. I had hoped-But never mind. You have your duty to do. Well, do it.’

  He held out his hands.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Owen. ‘Let us talk. It may not be necessary.’ He followed Sorgos into the small room.

  ‘Well?’ said Sorgos, turning and facing him.

  ‘I had hoped you would have heard my words,’ said Owen. ‘You are in a country which has treated you with honour and justice. I had hoped you would respond likewise.’

  Sorgos drew himself up. His eyes flashed.

  ‘Do you accuse me of not behaving with honour?’

  ‘What you are to yourself cannot be separated from what you are to the country you have come to.’

  ‘What I owe to myself is a private matter!’ said Sorgos furiously.

  ‘If you were a guest in a man’s house, and your enemy came to that house and was also received as a guest, would you offend your host’s kindness?’

  ‘I would wait until my enemy left before killing him.’

  ‘Then do the same here, where you are also a guest.’

  ‘Do you think I have not thought of that?’

  ‘I think you have not thought of that enough.’

  ‘It is not just I,’ said Sorgos, not giving an inch; ‘it is my people.’

  ‘The Mingrelians? Does not what I have said apply to them, too? Are they not also guests?’

  ‘We have suffered,’ said Sorgos, breathing heavily, ‘and we will be revenged.’

  ‘Is that what Mingrelians do,’ asked Owen, ‘offend their host?’

  ‘They kill their enemies,’ said Sorgos fiercely.

  ‘Anywhere? In the house of another, so that the blame will fall on them? Can this be honour?’

  Sorgos was for a moment at a loss.

  ‘This, too, is a country. Here, too, are a people,’ said Owen, pressing home his advantage. ‘Why should they suffer because of a cause which is not theirs?’

  ‘It is theirs,’ said Sorgos fiercely. ‘It is every man’s cause
. Why should the poor, the small, the weak be trodden down by the mighty? It is not Russia that we are resisting but oppression!’

  ‘A man must choose his cause,’ said Owen, ‘and you must let them choose theirs.’

  ‘I had hoped,’ said Sorgos, ‘that you, as a man from the mountains, would understand.’

  ‘I do understand. It is because I come from a country like yours, small, like yours, proud, like yours, that my heart goes out to you. We, too, have been invaded, oppressed, for much longer than you have, for many centuries. And from the centuries we have learned a lesson: that death breeds death. For a people to live there must be an end to the killing.’

  ‘They took away our country,’ said Sorgos. ‘They did not take away yours. For a people to live, they must have a land. When even that is taken away, all you are left with is the spirit. In time even that will fade. The young-I must not say that, Katarina says I must not say that, that the young have always been like this but that somehow they grow up and then are like the old. That they will care as I do and fight as I do. But,’ said Sorgos, ‘I fear-’

  ‘It is for them to choose,’ said Owen, ‘not for you.’

  ‘I am the last,’ said Sorgos. ‘In my heart I know it. I had hoped to rebuild a people but they turn their backs on me. Even my granddaughter does not understand when I say that there must be children. The time is coming when the Mingrelians will be no more. Well, so let it be. But if it has to end, let it end with honour. I will kill the Grand Duke.’

  ‘I had hoped to persuade you otherwise.’

  ‘You mean well,’ said Sorgos, ‘but you come too late.’

  ‘I do not think so. Where is the gold?’

  ‘The gold?’ said Sorgos, starting back.

  Owen went to the door and threw it open. The men began to file in.

  ‘Here is my search warrant,’ he said, pulling it out of his pocket and showing it to Sorgos.