The Mamur Zapt and the Night of the Dog mz-2

by Michael Pearce

  “Oh, come on.”

  “It is. You’re quite old-”

  “Oh really.”

  “You are.”

  “I’m just over thirty.”

  “You see? That’s quite aged. Especially in this climate. Maturity becomes senility very quickly here. It’s the heat and the sex and the drink. I’ve noticed it in a lot of my friends. Besides-”

  “For goodness’ sake!”

  “-you need to get married if you’re going to go any higher. At the top a single man is suspect. You wonder what he does with his time. Is he quite sound? And who will look after the entertaining?”

  “Some brainless aide-de-camp. There are lots of those around.”

  “Do not try to deflect me. We were talking about your career, in which I am taking a fatherly interest. Besides, I want you to take Jane Postlethwaite to the opera tomorrow night.”

  “I can’t. I’m taking Zeinab.”

  “Take them both. Jane Postlethwaite hasn’t met many Egyptian women. She certainly hasn’t met anyone like Zeinab.”

  “Can’t you get someone else?”

  “No. I’ve tried. None of the army officers will do because they’re all tone deaf. Besides, opera isn’t British.”

  “How do you know Jane Postlethwaite will like it?”

  “She sings, doesn’t she? I thought all Nonconformists did. You hear them on a Sunday morning.”

  “Yes, but that’s different. It’s a different sort of singing.”

  “There you are! A Welshman knows that sort of thing by instinct. Just the chap. Pick her up from the hotel at nine tomorrow.”

  Jane Postlethwaite was not sure about opera. She had not, she confided in Owen, actually been to one before and the glamour and glitter plainly made her uneasy. Since the plot had the usual operatic complication he had advised her to read the programme notes beforehand, and she perused them with a certain grim incredulity. When the audience broke into applause on first beholding the characteristically extravagant set she at first appeared dumbfounded and then sat back in her seat rather stiffly. However, as the evening progressed she seemed to relax and even to be enjoying the music.

  Zeinab, on the other hand, entered into the opera totally. Dramatic herself, she enjoyed drama in art; and the music swept in over emotional defences that were already down. Owen could hardly bear to look at her, so much was she at the mercy of the music, plunging with it into pits of despair, rising with it to heights of exaltation that were almost unbearable. By the time they reached the interval she was already emotionally shattered.

  Intervals were always protracted in Cairo. The whole performance, which started late anyway because of the heat, sometimes went on till four in the morning. So there was plenty of time to leave the box and promenade around.

  Owen saw several people he knew. Hadrill, for instance, the Adviser to the Ministry of Justice. Should he ask him what was going on at the top of the ministry and why they were resurrecting the Zoser case? But Hadrill was carrying a huge score and looked as if he took opera seriously. Then there was an aide-de-camp, slightly bored, piloting a bemused, middle-aged group to a table which had already been set out with refreshments. Important visitors, clearly. Owen started taking Jane and Zeinab across to join them but on the way they ran into a group of journalists whom Zeinab knew and got into conversation with them. They were all a-bubble with the opera and the state of the arts in Cairo generally and Jane Postlethwaite was a bit out of it. Fortunately he saw a nice couple from the Ministry of Education and was able to guide her over to them. They were talking to a Coptic family, parents and two children.

  “Hello,” said Ramses, turning round, “how’s the Curbash Compensation Fund?”

  “What?” said the man from the Ministry of Education, whose name was Lampeter.

  “Captain Owen is deep in the toils of the accountants just at the moment.”

  “Same here,” said Lampeter. “It’s the end of the year.”

  “I’m deep in the toil of accounts too,” said Molly Lampeter. “It’s the end of the month. Do you like opera?” she asked Jane Postlethwaite.

  “I’m new to it.”

  “I was new to it when I came out here. Now I like it quite a lot.”

  Back among the journalists Zeinab caught Owen’s eye and pulled a face.

  “Is your friend Sesostris here?”

  “Sesostris isn’t here,” said Ramses, “and he’s not my friend.”

  “Where does he stand in the War of the Succession?”

  “Out on a limb in my view. He’s completely opposed to any Coptic participation in the Government.”

  “Even at the personal level?”

  “You mean Patros? Yes. Especially.”

  “Is that going to happen soon?”

  “Is it going to happen? A lot of people are keen to stop it. Including Sesostris.”

  “The Khedive will have to make up his mind soon.”

  “Or have his mind made up for him.”

  “Is that likely to happen?”

  Ramses smiled and turned away.

  They resumed their seats and Owen slipped away into a tide of music and colour.

  When the opera ended Zeinab sat on, emotionally drained. Owen waited as usual for her to recover, talking quietly meanwhile with Jane Postlethwaite, who stole a glance at her from time to time, sympathetic and concerned but also slightly at a loss.

  Zeinab caught one of her glances.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, smiling. She was beginning to recover. “It’s always like this.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Oh yes. It’s just the music.”

  “You feel it very deeply.”

  “Yes. Don’t you?”

  Jane Postlethwaite considered.

  “No,” she said. “I love the music, of course, the arias especially. But I don’t feel-I don’t get bowled over by it, in the way you do.”

  “The terribleness of it,” said Zeinab, astonished and slightly losing her English, “you don’t feel?”

  Jane Postlethwaite looked uncomfortable.

  “No,” she said. “Very English of me, I’m afraid.”

  Zeinab laughed.

  “And very Arab of me, too, I expect,” she said.

  “Not just Arab,” said Jane Postlethwaite. “Italians are like it too. Especially about opera.”

  “You have been to Italy? And seen the opera?”

  “I have been to Italy. I went last year with my uncle. But I’m afraid I did not go to the opera.”

  “No?” Zeinab was astounded.

  “Perhaps I should have gone. But really I was there to look at the pictures.”

  “There are no pictures in Cairo,” said Zeinab.

  “But there are beautiful buildings. Some of the mosques are so lovely.”

  “I have never been to Italy,” said Zeinab.

  “It’s not unlike here in some ways. There was a beautiful avenue of mimosas I saw at the Gezira when we were walking round. It reminded me so much of Italy, as I told Captain Owen.”

  “Ah.”

  Zeinab had not heard about this.

  “I took Miss Postlethwaite to see the polo,” he explained.

  “Indeed?” said Zeinab distantly. She removed her hand from Owen’s arm, where she had placed it.

  “Against the deep blue of the sky just when it was getting dark,” said Jane Postlethwaite enthusiastically. “So like Italy. And so romantic.”

  “Romantic,” said Zeinab, as if she was taking the word down to be used in evidence.

  “The desert makes a difference of course,” said Owen.

  “For better or worse?” inquired Zeinab.

  “It’s the contrast,” said Jane Postlethwaite. “It shows up the differences.”

  “You think so?” Zeinab was inclined to take this personally. Jane Postlethwaite caught the tone and stopped, startled. Zeinab rose to her feet and swept out of the box.

  At the hotel Jane Postlethwaite made it worse by
inviting them to tea on the following afternoon.

  “I know you’re busy in the morning,” she said to Owen.

  “Her or me,” said Zeinab.

  “What?”

  “Either her or me. Not both.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “I don’t care if you have an affair with her but-”

  “I’m not having an affair with her.”

  “Then how does she know you’re busy in the morning?”

  “Everyone knows I’m busy in the morning. I work.”

  “You took her to the polo.”

  “I had to take her to the polo. Paul made me.”

  “You shouldn’t have taken her like that.”

  “Like what? Christ, there’s no other way of taking her.”

  “Without telling me.”

  “Look. I don’t tell you everything I do.”

  “No,” said Zeinab, “you don’t.”

  “I tell you the things I think will interest you.”

  “If you go out with another woman that interests me.”

  “I’m not going out with another woman. Not like that.”

  “Not like what?”

  “Not like you’re supposing.”

  “What am I supposing?”

  “For Christ’s sake!”

  Zeinab started on another tack.

  “She is cunning, that girl.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Why is she here? Tell me that.”

  “She is here to accompany her uncle. And besides, Egypt is an interesting place to visit.”

  “She is here to get a husband. Like the others.”

  Zeinab had no high opinion of the scores of English girls who flocked over to Egypt during the Cairo season and flirted with the deprived and well-connected young army officers.

  “She is not like them,” said Owen.

  “Oh? And how is she not?”

  “You can tell it straightaway.”

  “Well, tell it then.”

  Owen found this unexpectedly difficult.

  “She is more modest,” he said lamely, “more shy and retiring.”

  “More cunning,” said Zeinab.

  “She is a Nonconformist.”

  Zeinab was stopped in her tracks.

  “What is this? This ‘Nonconformist’?” Under the strain of the occasion Zeinab’s accent was becoming more and more French. “She is Socialiste? Nationaliste? Her? I do not believe you.”

  “It is religious.” It suddenly struck him that this was not perhaps the best time to go into the history of the Established Church in England. “A sort of sect.”

  “Ah. Like the Copts.”

  “No,” said Owen, “not like the Copts.”

  “If I were you,” said Zeinab, “I would have nothing to do with Copts. Or Nonconformists.”

  Things were indeed hotting up again; and they seemed to Owen to be hotting up chiefly on the Moslem side. Osman had recovered from his put-down and seemed bent on recovering the ground he had lost. There were incidents everywhere, in the bazaars, in the street markets, outside the churches, in the squares. The incidents were beginning to involve more people, too. That took organization; and that took money.

  “He’s got more money than I have,” complained Owen after four largeish simultaneous demonstrations had stretched his resources to the utmost. “Where the hell does he get it from?”

  “He must have powerful friends,” said Georgiades, who had just limped in off the streets; not injured but footsore. He wiped the sweat off his face with his sleeve and looked around hopefully. Nikos took pity on him and went out into the corridor and called for Yussuf. After a very long time Yussuf appeared. Since the debacle of the wedding/divorce he had become very morose, hardly responding to outside stimuli at all, sunk in his pain and brooding on his wrongs.

  “Coffee at once!” said Nikos sharply. He was not one to make allowances.

  Yussuf shuffled off and Georgiades waved a grateful hand.

  “I thought you had powerful friends too,” he said to Owen. “Where are they?”

  “They’ve got problems,” said Owen, “and I’m beginning to wonder whether their problems and our problems are connected.”

  He told Nikos and Georgiades as much as he could about the current political log-jam, leaving out the Patros bit.

  “You think there’s someone on the Moslem side who’s got an interest in keeping things on the boil?” asked Georgiades.

  Owen nodded.

  “There’s a lot of money washing around,” said Nikos. “Do you think it could be the Porte?”

  Egypt was still in principle a province of the Ottoman Empire; and while the Khedive’s allegiance to the Sultan of the Sublime Porte was in practice nominal, the Turks took a keen interest in Egyptian affairs.

  “No real sign of that so far. I think it’s internal.”

  “Well, one thing’s for sure,” said Georgiades. “It’s not the Khedive. He hasn’t any money.”

  “Not many of them have, at least not on the Moslem side. That’s why I think it could be a group of them acting together. Ministers, perhaps, who don’t like the way things are going.”

  “Any evidence of that?”

  “Well,” said Owen, “I don’t know if this is evidence, but…

  He told them about Mahmoud being put back on the case.

  “It must be someone high up,” said Nikos. “The case has been formally closed.”

  “The Minister?”

  “Could be. He’s new and ambitious.”

  “Any money of his own?”

  “Not of his own. He might be able to lay his hands on some.”

  “Especially if he was doing it with a few friends.”

  “It’s a bit out of our range, isn’t it?” asked Georgiades. “I mean, if it’s a minister?”

  “The Consul-General’s in this particular political game too,” said Owen, “and I think he would be interested.”

  “How do we find out?”

  “The only line we’ve got is through Mordecai,” said Nikos.

  “The Jew?”

  Nikos nodded.

  “In any case it would be interesting to find out where the money’s coming from,” said Owen.

  “Find out,” said Georgiades, “and stop it. Because if you don’t, there could be big trouble. A few more demonstrations like those last night and the whole place could get going.”

  “I think,” said Owen, “it’s time I had a word with Mordecai.”

  The workers in gold spilled out of the Goldsmiths’ Bazaar and into the surrounding streets and alleyways. As you approached the bazaar you passed their showcases, full of the flimsy and barbaric workmanship which the native Egyptians admired. There were bracelets and anklets of great weight and solidity made of the purest gold. These were investments and the form in which less-educated Egyptians stored their savings. There were, too, rings and earrings and charms, charms especially, which the Egyptians loved.

  Mordecai’s stall was on the very edge of the bazaar. You stepped down into it out of the street. It was lit by candles, and in the soft light the gold in the showcases round the walls shone three-dimensionally, given depth by the shadows. Mordecai himself was so much part of the shadows that at first when you stepped into the shop you did not see him. Then a little move, a little cough, made you aware of his presence.

  He led Owen into a recess behind a recess. There was hardly room for the two of them, let alone for Georgiades, who followed them in but had to remain stuck in the doorway. In the confined space Owen was powerfully aware of the heavy smell of body oil which, like many Egyptians, Mordecai used in abundance. As the moments went by he became aware of another smell, that of sweat. For Mordecai was sweating profusely. He was scared.

  “You know who I am?”

  Mordecai moistened his lips.

  “Yes, effendi. The Mamur Zapt.”

  “Very well, then. You know what I can do. You need not fear, however. You are only a little player
in a game in which there are big players. I am not interested in little players. When you have told me what you know you can go. Provided that you tell me truly.”

  “Effendi.. Mordecai hesitated.

  “Yes?”

  “What of the big players? What will they do to me?”

  “I am here. They are not.”

  The beads of perspiration streamed down Mordecai’s face.

  “They will kill me.”

  Owen said nothing. Just waited.

  The smell of sweat was overwhelming.

  “I will tell you. But…”

  “Afterwards?”

  Mordecai nodded.

  “Do you have friends in another town? Say, Alexandria?”

  “Yes, effendi.”

  “I will have you taken to them.”

  Mordecai looked relieved.

  “Afterwards. Provided I am satisfied.”

  “Yes, effendi.”

  “Very well, then. Now tell me: there is a sheikh who comes to you and you give him money?”

  “Yes, effendi.”

  “The dervish sheikh?”

  “Yes, effendi.”

  “How much money have you given him in the last three weeks?”

  “One hundred and thirty pounds. Egyptian.”

  Owen could sense Georgiades’s astonishment. One hundred and thirty pounds was a lot of money in a country where an average wage was three pounds a month.

  “That is a lot of money. It is not yours.”

  “No, effendi.”

  “Whose is it, then?”

  “Effendi, I–I do not know.”

  “Come, it is not not here one moment and suddenly here the next. Where does it come from?”

  “One brings it.”

  “That is better. And who is that one?”

  “Effendi, I do not know him. I do not know the name, or from where he comes, or from whom he comes. All I know is that every Friday at a set hour he comes and puts the money into my hands. He never speaks. He merely takes the receipt, then goes.”

  “Does he give you no instructions?”

  “Never.”

  “Then how do you know you are to give it to the Sheikh Osman?”

  “It was told me before.”

  “When was this?”