The Women of the Souk

by Michael Pearce

  The next day he returned with the nay player and they began to work their way through the area. Owen made a particular point of going to the sebil again, pretending to be studying the inscriptions. Above them he could hear again the sound of the children’s voices. They carried well, even in this crowded, built-up area.

  Could he not use that in some way?

  At the end of the day he met up with the nay player and they compared notes.

  ‘My voice isn’t right. It is too low. It needs to be – like the children’s voices in the kuttub.’

  ‘Let’s get some children, then.’

  The next morning the nay player brought several and tested their voices before setting out. Some had come from the senior forms at the Khedivial and Layla had come with them. Her own voice, as the nay player pointed out, wouldn’t do. It was too full, too low, too womanly. ‘Like Marie’s.’

  ‘I’ll get some juniors,’ said Layla.

  The next morning, true to her word, she brought several. Minya was among them.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Owen gently. ‘Your Headmistress wouldn’t like it.’

  Minya stuck her lip out and pouted.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ she said. ‘I’m a good singer.’

  ‘She is,’ said the nay player unexpectedly. ‘Just right!’

  ‘There you are!’ said Minya. ‘And she would know my voice. She made me practise my singing as we walked to school.’

  ‘If you were bigger,’ said Owen.

  ‘My voice would be different then,’ said Minya. ‘At the moment, it’s just right.’

  ‘It is,’ said the nay player.

  ‘No,’ said Owen.

  ‘I will go with her,’ said Layla.

  ‘No,’ said Owen.

  ‘It is just right!’ said the nay player.

  ‘Selim could go with me,’ said Minya.

  ‘A policeman wouldn’t look right,’ said Owen.

  ‘He could dress differently,’ said Minya.

  ‘He could bring her to me,’ said the nay player. ‘And then just stand there chatting. People do.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Selim is a very good chatter,’ said Minya.

  ‘Well, all right,’ said Owen. ‘We’ll give it a go.’

  Later in the morning the nay player took up position. And later still Selim came along with Minya. Minya exuding determination at every pore.

  ‘Listen to the rhythm,’ ordered the nay player. ‘Sing to the nay.’

  ‘I will,’ promised Minya. ‘And to Marie,’ she added softly to herself.

  The nay player smiled.

  ‘And I will do the same,’ he said. ‘And perhaps between the two of us …’

  They sang all through the morning. In the heat even Selim began to wilt. The nay player sent him to the fountain house to get some water. He had just returned when from one of the houses nearby a girl’s voice began to answer.

  ‘It’s Marie!’ cried Minya.

  FOURTEEN

  Selim rushed past Owen and ran up the narrow staircase. At the top two men were standing, bewildered, Selim barrelled through them – at least, that was what he must have done. To Owen at the time it appeared that he had simply run over them. They fell back and down the stairs into the arms of Owen’s men coming in. Selim charged on. The door at the top was closed, possibly locked. Selim crashed through it. Two more men inside looked up amazed. Something happened to them and they fell heavily against the wall. On the other side of the room a startled Marie was standing by the window. Selim scooped her up and ran downstairs, to where Minya and the nay player were waiting for her.

  ‘I knew it was your voice!’ said a tearful, delighted Marie.

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad!’ said Minya. ‘I sang my best, I really did!’

  ‘You were perfect!’ said the nay player.

  ‘Was I, really?’ said Minya, turning pink beneath her tan.

  ‘This time I did not run away!’ said the nay player.

  ‘You didn’t!’ said Marie, hugging him. ‘And you didn’t before. You were just taken by surprise.’

  ‘Get them out of here,’ Owen ordered his men. He didn’t want any last-minute difficulties.

  ‘And thank you, Minya,’ he said, looking down to where an ecstatic Minya stood holding Selim’s hand. ‘Him, too,’ said Owen. ‘All of you. Back to the Bab-el-Khalk!’

  Georgiades slipped into the room.

  ‘And now the money,’ he said to the kidnappers they were holding. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Ahmet has it,’ they said sullenly.

  ‘And where is Ahmet?’

  ‘Over here, Effendi. I was told to keep it safe.’

  ‘And have you kept it safe?’

  ‘Of course, Effendi! What do you think I am? A thief?’

  ‘I want it here, in my hands.’

  ‘Certainly, Effendi. I will go and fetch it.’

  ‘And in case of accidents,’ said Georgiades ‘I will come with you.’

  ‘Of course, Effendi,’ said Ahmet, looking rather cast down.

  ‘And I will count,’ said Nikos, coming in just at that moment. Nikos trusted neither the kidnappers nor Georgiades. Not that he doubted Georgiades’s honesty, it was his ability to count that he distrusted.

  So relieved was Nikos at the prospect of returning to home ground at the Bab-el-Khalk that he overcame his fears about speaking to little girls and offered to buy Minya an ice cream. Georgiades asked if he could have one too. And Minya asked if Selim could also have one. Stretching several points, and growing increasingly relieved as they approached the Bab-el-Khalk, Nikos agreed, and even went so far as to pat Minya on the head.

  Back at the Bab-el-Khalk, Layla, who had been pacing up and down, threw her arms around Marie and both girls collapsed, sobbing.

  ‘It was Layla’s idea,’ said Owen.

  ‘As acting head of the family,’ said Ali Osman, ‘I feel a certain responsibility for the girl.’

  ‘I’m glad you do,’ said Owen.

  Ali Osman hung his head.

  ‘I’ve not done very well so far,’ he acknowledged.

  ‘You will learn.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Ali Osman. ‘By the way, now that the ransom doesn’t have to be paid, there must be some money floating around?’

  ‘I gather the bank is seeing to that,’ said Owen.

  ‘I – I have never found them very helpful,’ said Osman. ‘I was wondering if you could put in a word …’

  ‘Glad to,’ said Owen. ‘But I’m afraid that the way things are, I shall have to put in quite a lot of words.’

  ‘Necessary, I’m sure,’ said Ali Osman.

  ‘Well, actually, I hope not. Marie’s father is recovering and will soon be able to resume his responsibilities.’

  ‘He shouldn’t resume them too quickly,’ said Osman hastily. ‘Not after his serious illness.’

  ‘True. But fortunately he has his wife to lean on, and now that she has Marie back with her, you’ll be surprised at the difference in her.’

  ‘Nevertheless, on financial matters …’ said Ali Osman.

  ‘The bank is helping.’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ said Ali Osman, if a trifle sadly. ‘And, of course she will need advice on the girl. After all that she has been through …’

  ‘Fortunately, her mother is the sister of one of the Khedive’s wives, who has promised to help.’

  ‘Oh, good!’ said Ali Osman, disappointed.

  ‘The trickiest bit is still the old difficulty,’ said Owen.

  ‘Old difficulty?’

  ‘The daughter is even more in love with the nay player.’

  ‘A nay player? Quite unsuitable!’

  ‘But they do love each other.’

  ‘What has that got to do with it?’

  ‘I am sure,’ said Owen, ‘that a man like you, with all your wealth of international experience, will be aware that things are changing. Particularly among the young who, increasingly, are adopting the view
that love should play a part in marriage.’

  ‘Well, naturally,’ said Ali Osman. ‘I have always been of the view that a wife should love her husband.’

  ‘So that seems all right then,’ said Owen.

  ‘All right?’ said Ali Osman hesitating.

  ‘So far as the relationship with the nay player is concerned.’

  ‘Well, yes. I mean, but there are two sides to this. If not three. Surely the father has a voice in this?’

  ‘In my experience, fathers always counsel delay.’

  ‘Wisely!’ said Ali Osman.

  ‘But their daughters usually prevail.’

  ‘I am all for listening to the wisdom of the aged,’ said Ali Osman.

  ‘Your father, for instance?’

  ‘Naturally, there are exceptions.’

  ‘As I said, Marie’s father is increasingly coming to the view that Marie may have it right. He is a bit of a romantic, is old Kewfik, especially now that he has recovered his daughter, and the idea of the nay player singing for her tickles his fancy. And his wife is thrilled to bits. As for the boy’s father, old Shawquat, well, he is not in a position to say anything. So I think the wedding will go ahead.’

  ‘The foolishness of the young!’ said Ali Osman ruefully.

  ‘They realise that they will have no money. A nay player, even a good one, has to scrape to earn a living. But they both feel, Ali and Marie, that they can make a go of it.’

  ‘Ah, the young!’ said Ali Osman, shaking his head.

  Ali Shawquat’s mother was actually quite pleased at the proposal of a new daughter-in-law. She had initially taken the side of her husband, feeling that Marie was too exalted to sit comfortably in a yoke with her own very dear but also, she thought privately, rather foolish son. Nay playing was all very well but – but, as she told herself, how would they have located the kidnapped Marie if it had not been for the nay playing?

  She put this to her husband.

  ‘I hope it works for me too,’ said the elder Shawquat, ‘when I am in the caracol.’

  ‘They told me you’ll be there for some time,’ she said to her husband. ‘And by the time you get out, I may be the grandmother of a darling boy. Moreover, with more women in the family, no one is going to listen to you, old man!’

  ‘Discourage him from becoming a nay player,’ said her intransigent husband.

  ‘Why?’ said Marie.

  ‘Why?’ said his wife.

  ‘Why?’ said Ali Shawquat Junior, who had grown greatly more mature of late. Aisha’s gentle tutoring may have had something to do with this, together with Ali’s delight at being able to share the mystery of the nay with her children, who both continued to take to his lessons well. Aisha was reluctant to part with an in-house nay player. Not many people, as she observed, had one. The Mahmoud and Aisha household had always inclined to the musical, and now it positively filled with music, much to Mahmoud’s delight. Particularly when Ali invited round his old friend the awalim and she sang to his nay.

  The house soon became the centre of a little musical world which became quite famous in Cairo for favouring the old songs. All sorts of people came to it, including the Old Woman of the souk and even, on occasion, the Mamur Zapt. Minya came to the house regularly and, singing so often with a top-class nay player and a really distinguished exponent of the art of the awalim, gradually became a well-known singer herself. Girls from the Khedivial started dropping in and the popularity of the old songs grew into a major movement.