As these were still in the nature of “warming up” exercises, the crowd took no great interest, concentrating instead on the ancillary services inseparable from any public occasion in Cairo. They clustered round the tea stalls, coffee stalls, sherbet stalls and sweetmeat stalls and sampled the chestnuts from the braziers at the foot of the trees. They watched with only an apparent lack of interest the tumblers, jugglers, snake-charmers, baboon-walkers, flute-players and story-tellers competing to entertain them. And they were lured in surprising numbers to the dark edges of the square, where veiled women from the villages read their fortune in the sand.
Owen took to all this like a Cairene; not so much the goods or turns in themselves as the pretext they provided for backchat and bonhomie. He had long ago come to the conclusion that the chief business of the Egyptian was conversation and that Egyptian institutions should be judged by the contribution they made to that. By that criterion the stall-holders, street-vendors and performers rated high. Round every stall was a knot of people all arguing vigorously. Owen would have liked to have joined in and normally would have done so. However, he felt slightly constrained by Miss Postlethwaite’s presence. He wondered, indeed, as he piloted her round the various turns in the open parts of the square, whether she was enjoying herself.
Once, she gave a little jump. This was when a baboon belonging to one of the street-performers put its hand in hers. Owen gave it the necessary milliemes and it released her hand and scuttled back to its owner.
“Don’t be alarmed, Miss Postlethwaite,” he said reassuringly. “They’re quite harmless. They look rather unpleasant, I know, especially when they’re exploited like this. But they’re the very same creatures as appear in the paintings in the tombs.”
It sounded horribly like the patter of the dragomans as they showed tourists round the Pyramids.
“Really?” said Miss Postlethwaite, slightly distantly.
She revived a little when they left the turns behind them and began to thread their way through the stalls. As always with a Cairo crowd, there was immense ethnic variety, and her interest seemed genuine as Owen pointed out the different types: the Nubians from the south, with their darker skins and scarred cheeks; the Arish from the Eastern Desert, the hawkfaced men with silver-corded headcloths and striped burnooses, their women unveiled but with their feet covered, as opposed to the ordinary Cairo women who exposed their legs but kept their faces concealed. He drew her attention to the dark turbans of the Copts. Was it his imagination or were there rather a lot of them? This was, after all, a Moslem occasion. He was beginning to think he had Copts on the brain when he heard one or two of the sweetmeat-sellers calling out, “A grain of salt in the eye of him who does not bless the Prophet,” the traditional cry for warding off bad luck, and knew he was not mistaken.
He bought Miss Postlethwaite a sherbet at one of the stalls and asked the stall-keeper why there were so many Copts around.
“Didn’t you know?” the man said. “This is the Moulid of Sheikh Darwish el-Ashmawi. All the expenses are paid by a Copt who became a Moslem.“ He grinned. ”They don’t like to see their money go so they come and eat it up.”
“To your great benefit, no doubt.”
The man mopped up a spill on the counter.
“I wish the benefit was greater,” he said.
“What is a Moulid?” Jane Postlethwaite asked.
“It’s a sort of feast-day for the local saint. In Egypt there are lots and lots of saints. Every village has one. Most have several. There are feast-days all the time. Everyone has a lot of fun.”
“Saints,” said Jane Postlethwaite, “and baboons!”
A change in the tempo of the drumming drew their attention back to the Zikr.
“The party’s starting,” said Owen, standing up. “It’s time for us to go.”
To one side of the Zikr was a roped-off enclosure for the elderly and more decorous. In it they were given cushions and coffee and settled back to watch developments. They were not long in coming.
In their absence the chanting had become more complex. Now it was more like an English catch-song or round. One group of Zikr would take up a phrase, embroider it and then give it to the others. In turn they would repeat it, embroider and give it back again. Gradually, the process became faster and faster until there was hardly a gap between the giving of a phrase and receiving it back again and all the Zikr seemed to be shouting all the time. The music rose to a crescendo.
Suddenly, one of the Zikr leaped into the middle of the ring and began to utter loud gasps in time with the words of the others. More and more of the Zikr joined in until they were all on their feet gasping in unison.
The gasping quickened. Someone else sprang into the centre of the ring and began to spin like a top, the skirt of his gown flying out around him like a huge umbrella. Other Zikr started to jump up and down and some of them rushed round the ring contorting their bodies and making little stabbing motions with their hands. All of them were screaming. The music rose to new heights. The uproar was terrific.
The man swirling in the centre stopped and stepped out of the ring. For a moment the music faltered. Then there was a piercing scream and another man sprang into the centre. He was very tall and black, a Nubian of some sort, and at once he began to leap up and down, holding his arms up so that his hands were locked above his head, all the time screaming “Allah! Allah! Allah!” He went on like this for several moments and then collapsed foaming on the ground. Two of the Zikr carried him aside.
The music faltered again and then began to pound even more insistently. Another Zikr sprang forward. This one kept bounding into the air, beating his breast and calling out, until suddenly he rushed to one side, picked up a short Sudanese stabbing spear and plunged it into his body. It seemed to have no effect. He did it again with another spear and then another. In a moment he seemed to be bristling with them.
Another Zikr began calling out for fire. Someone brought him a small copper chafing-dish full of red-hot charcoal. He seized a piece of charcoal and put it in his mouth. He did the same with another and another until his mouth was full, and then he deliberately chewed the live coals, opening his mouth wide every few moments to show its contents. When he inhaled, the coals glowed almost to white heat; and when he exhaled, sparks flew out of his mouth.
Someone brought a thorn bush into the ring and set it alight. One of the Zikr took it and thrust it up inside his robe, all the time continuing with his dancing. As he whirled round, his robe billowed out and the flames blazed up, so that his gown seemed full of fire. There was the great blaze in the darkness and above it the exalted, ecstatic face looking up to heaven.
Everywhere, now, was fire. And everywhere, too, men were rushing around with daggers and spears sticking in their throats, cheeks, mouths, faces, stomachs and chests. They danced and whirled and cried “Allah” continuously. The drums beat on, the flutes shrilled, and the music swirled to new heights of passion. All over the square now people were dancing and jumping.
Beside Owen, an elderly man sprang to his feet, tore off most of his clothes, and leaped into the circle. In a moment he was jumping skyward, his face contorted, his chest heaving with great gasps of “Allah.”
The Zikr danced on and on. They did not seem to tire, nor did they seem affected by the stabbing or the fire. After whirling for perhaps five or ten minutes they would stop and step out of the ring for a moment, apparently steady and completely free from giddiness. They would pause only for an instant and then rejoin the ring.
Towards midnight the music slackened. No new coals were brought, and as the flames died out, the Zikr quietened. Their dance became a steady rhythmic leaping. Their voices, hoarse now, could manage only a rapt murmur of “Allah.” One by one they fell out of the dance and collapsed to the ground, until there were only two or three whirling in the middle. Eventually, their spinning, too, came to an end.
The music stopped.
A great sigh rose from the onlookers like
a collective release. It was as if a spell had been broken. They sat back and as it were rubbed their eyes.
For a moment or two there was silence. And then one or two people began to talk, quietly at first but then more animatedly, and soon normal babble was resumed.
A white-bearded Zikr attendant came round with coffee and then, noting Miss Postlethwaite, returned with almond cakes.
“We should eat them,” said Owen, uneasily aware of the hour and thinking about Mr. Postlethwaite back in the hotel. “It is wrong to refuse hospitality.”
“I would not dream of doing so,” said Jane Postlethwaite, and tucked in with relish. “It is not, of course, the kind of religious occasion that I am used to but it was most interesting.”
Owen was relieved. It was some time since he had been to a Zikr gathering and he had forgotten what strong meat it was.
A Zikr walked past him. Owen recognized him as the one who had put the blazing thorn bush inside his gown. He was dressed now only in a loin-cloth-the gown had burnt. Owen looked at him closely. There were no traces on his skin either of burns or of thorn scratch marks. He looked over to where some of the other Zikr were standing. These were ones who had stabbed themselves with spears and swords and one or two of them still had knives sticking in them. They looked very, very tired but not hurt. There was a thin trickle of blood coming from some of the wounds. It was nothing like the mutilations, however, which some of the sects practised. These were often combined with self-flagellation and then there was blood everywhere. In the case of the Zikr the intention was not to humiliate but to exalt, to demonstrate the imperviousness of the body when it is caught up in Allah’s holy rapture.
Gradually all the Zikr who had collapsed to the ground rose to their feet. Except one, who as the minutes went by remained still.
CHAPTER 3
Paul was cross.
“I said show her the sights,” he complained. “I didn’t mean that sort of sight.”
“How was I to know it would end like that?”
“Well, Christ, if they’re always sticking knives in themselves, one day it was bound to happen. Anyway, is that the sort of thing you take a girl to? People sticking knives in themselves? Jesus, Gareth, you’ve got funny ideas of entertainment. You were out on that goddamn Frontier a bit too long.”
“She wanted to go,” Owen protested.
“She didn’t know what the hell she wanted. You should have had more sense. Couldn’t you have taken her to a mosque or something? She’s religious, isn’t she?”
“She wanted to see a bit of Cairo life.”
“Cairo life, yes, but not Cairo death. Honestly, Gareth, I’m disappointed in you. Where the hell’s your judgement?”
Garvin was even crosser.
“The Consul-General has been on to me,” he said, “personally. He wants to know, and I want to know too, what the bloody hell you were doing. You’re not some wet-behind-the-ears young subaltern fresh out from England without a bloody idea in his head. You’re the Mamur Zapt and ought to have some bloody political savvy.”
“She wanted to see Cairo-”
“Then show her Cairo. Show her the bloody Pyramids or something. Take her down the Musky and let her buy something. Take her to the bazaars. Take her to the Market of the Afternoon. Take her to the bloody Citadel. But don’t bloody take her somewhere where she’s going to see somebody get his throat cut.”
“He didn’t actually-”
Garvin paused in his tirade. “Yes,” he said, in quite a different voice, “that was a bit odd, wasn’t it? They usually know what they’re doing. However”-his voice resumed its previous note-“the one thing you’re supposed to be doing is handling this pair with kid gloves. Taking this girl to a Zikr gathering is not that.”
He glared at Owen, defying him to defy him. Owen had enough political sense at least not to do that.
“And that’s another thing,” said Garvin. “You were supposed to be showing them both around. Both. Not just the girl. This is not a personal Sports Afternoon for you, Owen, it’s bloody work. This man is important. With the new Government in England, these damned MPs are breathing down our necks. They’re on our backs already. This visit was a chance to get them off our backs. The Consul-General wants to build bridges. Any bloody bridge he wanted to build,” said Garvin pitilessly, “is shattered and at the bottom of the ravine right now. Thanks to you. Postlethwaite is going crazy. He’s demanding apologies all round. The Consul-General’s apologized, I’ve apologized-”
“I certainly apologize,” said Owen stiffly.
“You do?” said Garvin with heavy irony. “Oh, good of you. Most kind.”
“I shall see it doesn’t happen again.”
“You won’t get the bloody chance,” said Garvin.
Back at the office there were soon developments. They were not, however, of the sort that Owen had expected.
“Visitors,” said Nikos.
Owen rose to greet them. There were three. Two of them were religious sheikhs and the third was an assistant kadi. There was a separate judicial system in Egypt for Mohammedan law presided over by a separate chief judge, the kadi. It was the assistant kadi who spoke first.
“We have come to lay a complaint,” he said.
“A complaint? In what connection?”
“It concerns a killing. It happened last night. We understand that you were there.”
“A Zikr? At the gathering? If so, I was there.”
The assistant kadi looked at the two sheikhs. They appeared pleased.
“He was there, you see,” one of them said.
“Then he will know,” said the other.
“What should I know, Father?” asked Owen courteously.
“How it came about.”
“I expect you are already working on it,” said the assistant kadi.
“On what?” asked Owen, baffled.
“On the murder.”
“Murder? I saw no murder.”
“But you were there,” said one of the sheikhs, puzzled.
“A man died. I saw that.”
“But it was murder. It must have been. A Zikr would not die as he was reaching towards his God.”
“Allah takes people at any time,” said Owen as gently as he could.
The sheikh shook his head.
“I know what you are thinking,” he said. “It wasn’t like that.”
“What am I thinking?” asked Owen.
“You are thinking he died from his own hand.”
“Well-”
“It was not like that. A Zikr knows.”
“Knows where to put the knife? Yes, but in the-” Owen hesitated; the word “frenzy” was on the tip of his tongue- “moment of exaltation” he substituted. “In the moment of exaltation who knows what may have happened?”
The sheikh shook his head firmly.
“Allah guides his hand,” he said with certainty.
“The Zikr does not make mistakes,” said the other sheikh, with equal conviction.
They met Owen’s gaze with a simple confidence which Owen felt it would be churlish to challenge.
“If he did not die by his own hand,” said Owen slowly, “then how did he die?”
“By the hand of another.”
Owen paused deliberately.
“Such things should not be said lightly.”
The sheikhs agreed at once.
“True.”
“He speaks with justice.”
“Then how”-Owen paused-“can you be sure?”
The sheikhs looked a little bewildered.
“The Zikr do not make mistakes. Allah guides their hand,” they explained again, patiently, rather as if they were speaking to a child.
Owen normally had no difficulty in adjusting to the slow tempo and frequent circularity of Arab witnesses but this morning, what with the events of the last two days, he felt his patience under strain.
“There must be further grounds,” he said.
The sheikhs look
ed at each other, plainly puzzled.
“The Zikr do not-” one began.
The assistant kadi intervened with practised authority.
“There was talk of a man.”
“During the dance?”
“During the dance.”
“Just talk?”
“There are others who claim to have seen.”
“What sort of man?”
He could have guessed.
“A Copt,” the two sheikhs said in unison.
As the three left, Owen detained the assistant kadi for a moment.
“The Parquet’s been informed, I take it?”
“Yes. However, as you were there-”
“Yes, indeed. Thank you.”
“Besides”-the assistant kadi glanced at the retreating backs of the sheikhs-“there could be trouble between the Moslems and the Copts. I shouldn’t be saying it, I suppose, but I thought you ought to be involved.”
“I’m grateful. It is important to hear of these things early.”
“You’ll have no trouble with these two,” the assistant kadi went on confidentially, “nor with the people in the Ashmawi mosque. It’s the sheikh in the next district you’ll have to watch out for. He’s jealous of all the money going to the Ashmawi. Besides, he hates the Copts like poison.”
Owen rang up his friend in the Parquet.
“Hello,” said Mahmoud.
“There’s a case just come up. A Zikr killing. A Zikr death, anyway,” he amended. “Do you know who’s on it?”
“Yes,” said Mahmoud. “Me.”
“Thank Christ for that,” said Owen.
“Have you an interest?”
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