The Camel of Destruction (13 page)

It was particularly sad to find the Mamur Zapt so directly implicated. There had recently been indications that he was taking a more liberal line. Alas, this was probably merely another illustration of the subterfuge for which the Mamur Zapt was famous.

Corruption, the article concluded, was all around. The only answer was to get rid of the lot of them: Khedive, Pashas, Government, British, bankers, moneylenders, barbers— Barbers? Owen summoned Yussuf. Why barbers?

Yussuf shuffled his feet.

‘In our village,’ he said finally, ‘it is Abdul the barber who arranges the loans.’

‘But surely he has no money to lend?’

‘No, but Ibrahim has and Abdul acts for him.’

‘Why does not Ibrahim act for himself?’

‘Because he lives in another village, effendi.’

At last Owen understood. In the small villages of the Egyptian countryside the barber was often a leading figure. Where there was no
omda
, or headman, he sometimes acted as the local registrar.

Of an evening the men of the village would gather round to admire the barber’s art and join in the conversation. This left the barber handily placed for the discharge of commissions, especially on behalf of those outside the village.

Agent for the local moneylender and representative of the Government! No wonder the rural barber was added to the Nationalists’ hate list.

The town barber was, of course, quite different. He was often radical, as in the case of Owen’s friend in the Derb Aiah, and very popular with the Nationalists.

‘Yussuf,’ said Owen sternly, ‘you must not go to Ibrahim. He will charge you a fifty per cent rate of interest.’

‘More,’ said Yussuf sadly. ‘Abdul told me yesterday it would be seventy-five per cent if I did not go to him soon.’

‘You steer clear of him,’ Owen advised.

Yussuf spread his hands.

‘How can I, effendi? I must buy seed. And now that the Bank has refused…’

Owen sat considering the nation’s finances for some time, an activity to which he was not much accustomed. They seemed more complicated than he had thought. Banks, he was against, and moneylenders, too. Large landowners he was not greatly in favour of, rich pashas in general even less. The business community did not fill him with enthusiasm.

But abolish all these—and he was astonished to find the similarity between his own thinking and that of the Nationalists—and where was the money to come from?

The phone rang.

‘Gareth,’ said Paul sternly, ‘is this true?’

‘Is what true?’

‘About the money.’

He quoted the relevant part of
Al-Lewa
.

‘Certainly,’ said Owen.

There was a long silence.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Paul.

All Cairo loved a procession, which was just as well for there were plenty of them. There were wedding processions and funeral processions; there were processions to mark the end of Ramadan and the Rising of the Waters; there was a procession to ‘smell the air’, when half of Cairo trooped out of the city on the first day of the
khamsin
to savour the coming of spring.

There were processions to mark saints’ days and there was certainly at least one saint’s day every week. There was a procession to mark the Birthday of the Prophet, marred only by the fact that the interfering British would no longer allow devotees to lie on their faces in the street for the Descendant of the Prophet to ride over. Similar interference, it was rumoured, was projected for the night of the Ashura, when the devout marched through the streets slashing themselves with swords and knives.

The best time for processions was during the pilgrim season. Almost every day private pilgrims returning from Mecca were escorted back to their houses by processions sometimes half a mile in length. When the bulk parties of pilgrims arrived, by train now, the procession jammed the city for days. The climax was the Return of the Carpet from Mecca— an occasion which Owen had good cause to remember.

Processions did not consist simply of people marching. They included palanquins and bands and acrobats and masqueraders. They included people doing comic turns—usually of a scurrilous nature—in cages carried on marchers’ shoulders. They included people dancing and people carrying their restaurants around with them and giant floats with papier-mâché figures. All the fun of the fair, you might say; only a moving fair.

The British, when they came, had no idea how to police this lot. That policing was needed was self-evident. Big numbers in confined places; people enjoying themselves. That spelt trouble.

They tried lining the streets with constables. It did not work because the constables were simply lads from the country and either watched jaw-dropped and spellbound or else joined in.

After a while the authorities realized that the occasions needed little special policing except when they were on an unusually large scale. They confined their efforts to political demonstrations, of which, with the growth of Nationalism, there was an increasing number.

These certainly did need policing, not so much because of the threat these posed to the authorities, although that was not how they saw it, but because they tended to spill over into violence directed at some minority group or other.

So when the Mufti proposed his Grand March, Owen’s first question was about the nature of the procession.

‘Political, certainly,’ said the Mufti. ‘We want to influence the Prime Minister, don’t we?’

Owen explained his difficulty.

‘It’s hardly religious,’ said the Mufti. ‘I could say it was to stop mosques being knocked down but then that very definitely
would
lead to trouble.’

‘I was wondering,’ said Owen diffidently, ‘whether the point could be made implicitly in some way. You know, the procession could ostensibly be about something else, to celebrate a saint or something, but somehow make the point—?’

‘We could certainly celebrate a saint,’ said the Mufti, thinking. ‘There are several to choose from. There is no need to be too pedantic about actual day of birth. How about Sheikh Abd Al-Samad?’

‘He seems as good as any other.’

‘Better,’ said the Mufti, ‘because what he is noted for is averting the Camel of Destruction.’

‘How did he do that?’

‘He lay down in its path. The Camel swerved when it saw the Sheikh and the town was saved.’

‘He will do very nicely,’ said Owen.

The date and route of the March was announced. The procession would start outside the Mosque of lbu Tulan, proceed westward past the Mosque of Sayida Zeinab (Owen liked this), march northwards through the Ministerial Quarter (unusual, this, for a saint’s procession) to the Bab-el-Luk, swing eastwards past the Khedive’s Palace (so that the Khedive could share their delight) and the Police Headquarters at the Bab-el Khalk (where the police could keep an eye on them) and finally march east out of the city towards the Mokattam Hills, where a
fantasia
would be waiting for them.

This was important both because it was a great draw and because it was out of town, so here would be a fair chance of everything ending peaceably.

A
fantasia
was, basically, fun and games. A space would be made ready with lots of little booths made out of carpet in which sights might be seen (like the Woman With Two Heads) and entertainment experienced (like the Juggling Snake). There would be a variety of food stalls so that the procession could refresh itself on cakes (but not ale), sweetmeats, nuts, roasts and tea.

After which they would all, so Owen hoped, go peacefully to bed.

McPhee, the Deputy Commandant of the Cairo Police, would look after this end. He had a collector’s interest in saints’ days: although he was a little puzzled by this one.

‘I thought I knew them all,’ he said, surprised.

‘Ah, but this is a special one,’ said Owen.

‘I must look up this Sheikh Abd Al-Samad.’

‘Yes, you should do that,’ said Owen, ‘afterwards.’

The procession, unusually, would be led by the Mufti himself. It was said that he wished to give special emphasis to the day’s meaning.

The other unusual feature was that he would be accompanied by the Mamur Zapt.

‘Smart wheeze!’ said the regulars in the bar, nudging each other knowingly.

‘The Pied Piper in person,’ said Paul tartly.

The procession set off late in the afternoon when the sun was beginning to go off the streets but its rays could still sparkle redly in the brass-backed mirrors which were an essential part of any procession. It would finish in the dark, when the flaming torches and little red lanterns and fireworks could be seen to best advantage.

Since the Mufti was at its head, the leading ranks were full of the illustrious. These did not include the Widow Shawquat and the barber, who nevertheless were prominent in a second phalanx led by Selim. Beside them, dogged to the last, hobbled the Sheikh Hussein Al-Jamal Abd-el-Assid.

Owen marched beside the Mufti. They had much to talk about, little of which concerned the saintly merits of Abd Al-Samad.

‘What an excellent opportunity!’ said the Mufti. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a long time.’

‘We must do this more often,’ said Owen.

Small boys ran along the fringes of the procession. One such small boy drew up alongside Owen as he was talking to the Mufti.

‘Effendi!’ hissed Ali. ‘He is here!’

‘Who?’

‘Your rival. What do you advise?’

‘Keep walking!’ counselled Owen. ‘Let him die of sunstroke.’

Baffled, Ali dropped back.

The Widow Shawquat had dropped back, too. So had the Sheikh Hussein Al-Jamal Abd-el-Assid. A little later, however, Owen saw them again, once more in their position at the head of the second phalanx. This time, though, the Sheikh was sitting in a wheelbarrow, pushed by a stout, but bemused, workman under the close supervision of the Widow Shawquat.

The progress of that part of the procession was a little unsteady because the barber kept stopping, the better to harangue those about him.

Not far away Selim looked nervous. This was not just because the barber had brought his working tools with him and every so often there was the bright flash of scissors in the air. It was because, with the misplaced feeling of responsibility for the universe of the over-conscientious, he was casting around in his mind for things that could go wrong. Owen was relieved to see, a little later, that Barclay had joined him. One man, at least, knew what this was all about.

The procession turned up the broad boulevard between the Ministries. People came out of the buildings and marched in the procession for a short while to show their respects.

Among them, forewarned of the presence of the Mufti and eager to demonstrate the religious zeal which was commonly and so wrongly supposed to be lacking in them, were several Ministers. They fell in naturally beside the Mufti.

‘This saint must be important, O Mufti,’ they said, ‘since you are leading his procession.’

‘It is not the man himself,’ said the Mufti, ‘but what he stands for.’

‘Of course! Of course!’

‘What does he stand for?’ asked the Mufti.

‘Well…’

‘I will tell you,’ said the Mufti, and recounted the story of Sheikh Abd Al-Samad.

When he had finished, there was a puzzled silence.

‘You said it was what he stood for?’ said one of the Ministers hesitantly.

‘A Camel of Destruction is about to march through the city,’ said the Mufti sternly.

‘He is?’

The Mufti looked back over the procession behind him. It stretched out all the way down the boulevard and then bent out of sight down the Sharia el Mobtaddyan. From further away, the Midan Nasriyeh, perhaps, or perhaps even the Place Sayida Zeinab, came the sound of drums which indicated that the tail was still assembling.

‘And all these good people are prepared to lie in its way,’ said the Mufti. ‘There are a lot of them, don’t you think? But then, you politicians don’t care about numbers.’

The Ministers, mindful of their voters, were not so sure.

‘But, Mufti,’ said one of them diffidently, ‘I still don’t see what this Camel
is
.’

‘It is not so much the Camel itself as its path. Which happens to go in a straight line from the Bab-el-Azab to the Bab-el-Futuh. Right through the Old City with all its mosques. I am sure, gentlemen,’ said the Mufti sweetly, ‘that you understand now the special significance of our blessed Sheikh.’

The Ministers did understand the significance of the Blessed Sheikh. A day or two later it became known that the road was not going to be proceeded with.

The fact that the Mufti had come out so strongly against the road and the scale of the support had also impressed the British. The word
jihad
, or holy war, was suddenly on peoples lips. The Consul-General shook his head and Paul went out among the foreign bankers with a long face muttering the word ‘risky’. He did not go into details; simple repetition of the word, which seemed to have awful significance for bankers, was enough.

Support for the project crumbled. The Khedive was furious. What were the British there for, he demanded? If it wasn’t to make sure that the banks got their cash, what was it? Why didn’t they get on and use those expensive soldiers?

The bankers didn’t care to hear it put quite so plainly and war would clash with the Army’s Sports Day, so confrontation was postponed.

This suited the Nationalists, except the more militant ones. Unusually, however, they found themselves rallying to the support of the Khedive. Roads were plainly progress. The Khedive, wrong-headed though he was on most things, was right on this. Modernization was what the country needed.

The fact that the British were opposing it was surely guarantee enough of its being in the country’s interests.

Barclay bought Owen a drink. Even Selim, whom they collected from his work on the little sparkling, blue-tiled mosque, was tempted to join them in it, though in the end he stuck to coffee. He intended, he confided, to go and see Aisha’s parents afterwards.

They parted outside the Fingaris’ door. As Owen turned away he found Ali watching aghast.

‘You are too generous, effendi!’ he wailed. ‘I know the British say you should give your adversary a sporting chance but this is ridiculous!’

‘It’s not like that,’ said Owen, feeling it incumbent on him to set Ali’s overheated mind at rest.

‘Well, at least it’s not Jabir,’ said Ali, when eventually he became reconciled.

Owen caught him by the shoulder.

‘What was that you said?’

‘You spoke of him yourself, effendi!’ cried Ali, alarmed.

‘I know I did. What do you know of him?’

‘You don’t have to worry about him, effendi,’ said Ali, rubbing his shoulder. ‘Aisha has already rejected him.’

‘I know that,’ said Owen, ‘but how do you?’

‘I heard her rebuff him, effendi. He went to her house. She would not even give him admittance. But he is a nasty man, effendi. Afterwards he went back and spoke with her brother. “I will have her,” he said, “one way or another. You go back and command her.” “She does not love you,” Osman said. “What has that got to do with it?” asked Jabir. “You are her brother. She is yours to command.” “She will not,” said Osman. “You see she does,” said Jabir, “or you know what will happen.’”

‘How did you hear all this?’

‘I happened to be standing by,’ said Ali. ‘They sat outside at a café.’

‘Did you think Jabir might wish to use you?’

‘Effendi!’ said Ali, shocked. ‘How could you think a thing like that!’

‘Has he used you before?’

‘Effendi! Well, perhaps occasionally.’

‘With Aisha?’

‘She would not receive his letters. Afterwards, he would blame me and beat me. So I refused to take them. Well, until he offered me more money. Effendi—’

‘Yes?’

‘It was not the beating that I minded but the way he did the beating.’

‘What way was that?’

‘As one might beat a dog if one especially wished to hurt it.’

‘I understand.’

‘I think Aisha did, too, and that is why she would not have him.’

‘That day, when he spoke with Osman, what else did he say?’

‘I could not understand. They spoke in riddles.’

‘Did you learn what it was that Jabir threatened?’

‘No, effendi. But Osman protested and said they were two different things. And Jabir said that to him they were the same, and that if Osman did not do them both he would betray him. And Osman said he could do the other thing but not this thing, and that this thing was small and the other big. But Jabir said that this thing was big to him and he would have it so.’

‘And then?’

‘Jabir left.’

‘And Osman?’

‘He put his head on his arms and wept.’

‘Anything I can do to help,’ murmured Jabir politely. ‘Where shall we start?’

‘How about when you first met up with him again after he had left College? You were working for a bank then, I believe?’

‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’

‘The Trans-Levant. Which concerned itself largely with property speculation.’

‘Investment,’ said Jabir, ‘investment.’

‘And Osman Fingari had just been appointed to the Ministry of Public Works. Which was very convenient.’

Jabir looked at him warily.

‘Was it?’

‘Yes. He was responsible for planning matters in the part of Cairo in which you were interested.’

‘We have interests everywhere.’

‘The Bab-el-Azab. Did you approach him over that, I wonder?’

‘I don’t think so. I certainly don’t remember doing so.’

‘That is strange, because the Trans-Levant was buying up property in that area and seeking permission to develop.’

‘Ah, but that would have been someone else.’

‘You didn’t approach Osman Fingari to, let us say, make things easier?’

‘I wasn’t involved in that project at all.’

‘That, too, is strange, for someone who knows you, remembers you as active in it, too.’

‘Not very active.’

‘Very active,’ said Owen, ‘or so this person says.’

Jabir shrugged.

‘Be that so or not,’ said Owen, ‘the application was approved. By Osman Fingari.’

Jabir shrugged again.

‘And this is where I’m hoping you will be able to help me: was the Bab-el-Azab project before Tufa or after?’

‘Tufa?’ said Jabir.

‘You remember Tufa? It was a question of enclosing land from the desert, at a nominal price because it was to be used for industrial development. Again you approached Fingari, and again he approved.’

‘I don’t remember approaching him. We handle a lot of projects.’

‘You might remember this one, because you approached him again. After he had moved to the Ministry of Agriculture. This time it was over registering a change of land use.’

‘I believe I recall something now. Wasn’t it to do with water?’

‘I am so glad you remember. You see, there is a record of your presence at a meeting where the application was discussed.’

Jabir smiled. ‘Are you not making a mystery of something innocuous, Captain Owen?’

‘Is financial deception innocuous, Mr. Sabry?’

‘All businessmen try it on, Captain Owen. That is all I plead guilty to.’

‘Ah, but look at it from the other point of view, Osman Fingari’s. There are rules in such matters for public servants.’

‘The most he could be condemned for is the indulgence of a friend.’

‘Not quite the most. Did not money change hands?’

‘You would have to prove that, Captain Owen.’

‘More to the point, you could, if required.’

‘I don’t quite follow you.’

‘Was not that the object? To put Osman Fingari in a blackmailable position? So as to be sure he would do as he was told.’

‘You’ve lost me, I’m afraid.’

‘You wanted his connivance over something rather bigger: the deal with the Agricultural Bank.’

‘You make me sound very sinister, Captain Owen.’

‘I think you are sinister, Mr. Sabry. You very deliberately set about catching your friend in the meshes of a carefully prepared net. You trapped him over Tufa and I suspect that when we have finished our investigations we shall find that you trapped him over Bab-el-Azab, too. And this was done so that you could wedge him in over the deal with the Agricultural Bank. But that, actually, is not the worst of it.’

‘No?’

‘No. Having trapped him, you tightened the screw, and you did that not because it was necessary but because you wanted to.’

‘He was dragging his feet.’

‘A little. Others were pressuring him, too. But that does not explain why you deliberately did it to the point when he broke.’

‘Everyone puts pressure on.’

‘But not everyone enjoys pressing to the point of destruction.’

‘How was I to know he would commit suicide?’

‘Because you knew he had nearly done it before. You knew Osman well, Mr. Sabry. You knew how weak he was and the extent of your own influence over him. You had tormented him at school and you had enjoyed the tormenting. When the chance came again, you enjoyed that. He was your bird, Mr. Sabry.’

‘Bird?’

‘Don’t you remember the incident of the bird from your schooldays? It had a damaged wing and your schoolfriends urged you to kill it. So you did, but not quickly.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Was Aisha going to be your bird, too, Mr. Sabry?’

‘Aisha!’

‘I think she was, only she knew it and would not have you.’

‘What has Aisha got to do with it?’

‘When she rebuffed you, it made you ugly inside. You had to work that out of you. You went back to Osman. You knew he was there and trapped and that you could do what you liked with him. You tightened the screw until he screamed and then tightened it again. He screamed again and then you tightened again. And then he died.’

‘I didn’t mean to kill him,’ said Jabir hoarsely.

‘I think once you had started tightening and he had started screaming you could not stop,’ said Owen.

‘He had, you see, two agendas,’ he explained; ‘the one set by his employers and his own. His employers admit the pressure but say, naturally, that it was never intended to go so far. When he gave the last twists he was acting on his own.’

‘Because that was the kind of guy he was?’

‘Exactly.’

‘You’ll never convict him,’ said Georgiades positively. ‘Pressure isn’t a crime.’

‘Blackmail is. Offering inducements is. I’ll get him on those.’

‘Will you be able to prove it?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ said Owen drily, ‘how cooperative his employers are. So anxious are they to dissociate themselves from Jabir’s acts that they are providing me with all sorts of details about his activities.’

‘Who
were
his employers?’ asked Georgiades.

‘There were several groups interested in the deal going ahead.’

‘The Agricultural Bank?’ suggested Georgiades.

‘Yes, but Jabir didn’t actually work for them directly. Nor, incidentally, did he work for the Khedivial Agricultural Society, which was also interested in the deal going ahead. But he did work for interests outside the Society, a small group whose leader was Ali Reza Pasha. Ali Reza had excellent contacts with Ministers—and so was able to arrange Osman Fingari’s transfer—which was probably why the Trans-Levant secured him as an ally. They worked together on the deal and Jabir was the go-between.’

‘The Trans-Levant, then.’

‘Yes, but it, too, was acting as an agent. Behind it there was a big international bank which sniffed opportunities in Egypt. What it was really interested in was the deal with the Agricultural Bank. It wasn’t fussy, though. It was also attracted by the prospect of financing the road. It hesitated between the two. The extra deal on the new seed tipped the balance in favour of the Agricultural Bank. Then when that looked like falling through, it swung the other way.’

‘So there
was
a degree of urgency over the deal,’ said Georgiades.

‘Yes. And I think Fingari knew it could swing the other way and was trying to hold on until it did. He was a Nationalist, you see. He was suspicious of the Agricultural deal because he thought it would be at the expense of the fellahin. On the other hand he was in favour of the road because, well, that was modernization, that was progress.’

‘So he wasn’t just venal?’

‘Oh no, he had his ideals, too.’

Georgiades hesitated.

‘I think I would tell Aisha that,’ he said.

A thing then happened which was to Owen, still, obviously, innocent in the ways of the financial world, surprising. The deal on the road having fallen through, the big international bank announced that it was once more interested in lending to the Agricultural Bank.

‘You’re not going to let it go ahead, are you?’ said Owen, outraged.

‘Oh yes,’ said Paul, ‘and tap it for some more if we can. Lenders are scarcer than borrowers. Especially in Egypt just at the moment.’

Paul was now reconciled to Owen, having heard that the sum he had raised from the Khedivial Agricultural Society had been paid straight into the Public Accounts and that the Head of Audit had personally approved the large transfer into Owen’s hospitality budget which had made possible his convivial evening at the opera.

Nikos went into a state of deep shock.

Yussuf was overjoyed and went to the Agricultural Bank as soon as it resumed lending. On his way home, however, Satan tempted him and he determined to divorce his existing wife and embark on a more stirring existence with someone younger. As soon as he reached home he informed his wife, in accordance with Islamic law, that she was henceforth divorced.

‘Oh, am I?’ she said. ‘In that case you had better pay me back my dowry,’ fairly confident that he could not.

‘Here it is,’ said Yussuf, counting out seven pounds from the money he had just received.

He then approached the father of an attractive girl he had seen.

‘A bit out of your reach,’ the father said. ‘Her dowry is twelve pounds.’

‘Only twelve-pounds?’ and Yussuf counted it out.

When he asked his new bride to let him have back the £12 so that he could buy seed, she refused, knowing that he had divorced his first wife and guessing that he would soon tire of her.

Sure enough, it was not long before he was regretting his decision. He divorced his new wife and went back to his old one and asked her to marry him again.

‘Very well,’ she said, ‘but now you owe me five pounds. Her dowry was twelve pounds and mine was only seven pounds.’

‘All right,’ said Yussuf and let her have the £5, which was, as it happened, all that he had left of the sum he had borrowed from the Agricultural Bank.