The Camel of Destruction (5 page)

At first sight it was unpromising since it seemed to be an area of
rabas
, tenements consisting of one or two sleeping-or living-rooms, a kitchen and latrine (but not a bathroom; you went outside to wash). Many of them were built above shops.

They were easy to pick out because they tended to be built at an angle to the street; that is, instead of there being a flat wall above the shop, there was a sort of triangular street corner with windows looking both ways, windows without glass, of course, just fretted woodwork which gave passage to the air and allowed the women inside to observe without being observed. In Cairo you always felt as if you were being watched; and you usually were.

‘This street, old boy.’

Half way along the street, tucked in behind the
rabas
, were some marvellous old Mameluke houses. The box-like windows of each storey projected further and further across the street so that at the top they almost touched the windows opposite. The structures rose like the fortress of a Spanish galleon.

‘Look at the woodwork!’ breathed Barclay. ‘There’s no one who can do that today. Once that goes—’

They went down the tiniest of alleyways and came out in a small square. At first it looked a very ordinary little square with nothing to mark it out except a rather plain flight of mosque steps which appeared to lead up to a blank wall.

But at the top of the steps there was an open passage, at the other end of which there was something blue and shining. They went down the passage and came out in a courtyard. In the centre of the courtyard was a blue tower. It flashed and shone in the sunlight, sparkling like a turquoise.

‘It’s the tiles, you see,’ said Barclay.

The tower was faced with thousands of tiny blue tiles which caught and reflected the sunlight like the facets of a precious stone.

They went inside. The tower was, Owen realized, a small Dervish mosque. It was fitted out with fine, soft carpets and beautiful glass mosque lamps. From the dome, painted blue to match the tiles outside, hung a cage of fretted meshrebiya woodwork, with a canopy roof like a Turkish fountain and lots of Moslem prayers hanging from it.

They came out and walked round the outside. At the back of the tower there was some scaffolding and some men were at work repairing the tiles.

‘It’s being restored,’ said Barclay. ‘By the
Waqfs
.’

‘
Waqfs
?’

‘Ministry of.’

‘I thought they just administered the endowments?’

‘They do. Upkeep is part of the administration.’

A young man came round the corner carrying a piece of broken tile. He recognized Barclay and smiled at him.

‘This is Selim,’ said Barclay. ‘He does quite a bit of work for us.’

‘When it’s there,’ said the young man, shaking hands. ‘At the moment there’s more with the
Waqfs
.’

‘Do you specialize in restoration?’ asked Owen.

‘I’d like to. But there really isn’t enough work of that sort. Especially now. It’s one of the things that get cut.’

‘He’s done some lovely work,’ said Barclay. ‘I’ll show you one day.’

‘Thanks. I’d like to see it.’

They shook hands and moved on.

‘Good chap,’ said Barclay. ‘A bit political, but he knows his job.’

At the top of the steps they turned and looked back.

‘A gem!’ said Barclay. ‘Pity if that got in the way of a developer.’

The Widow Shawquat, impressed but slightly flustered at so exalted a response to the letter she had placed in the Mamur Zapt’s box, was prepared to receive him. Mindful of proprieties, however, she could do so only in the presence of a suitable male and it took a little while to find him; especially as, equally mindful of what was her business and not that of her neighbours, she went to some pains to choose one who was deaf.

Eventually, though, Owen was seated on a low, moth-eaten divan with a brazier in front of him on which a brass pot of coffee was warming.

‘The Mamur Zapt, eh,’ said the Widow, wriggling with pleasure, ‘in my house!’

‘Be quiet, woman!’ shouted the old man. ‘Men speak first!’

The Widow, behind her veil, gave him a look but subsided. The old man, conscious, too, of proprieties, clapped his hands.

‘Coffee!’ he bawled. ‘Coffee for the Effendi!’

An old woman scuttled in and poured Owen some coffee in a small brass cup. Owen sipped it dutifully and praised it copiously. It was quite some time before they were able to get down to business.

‘Please tell the Widow Shawquat that when the Mamur Zapt read her letter he was deeply concerned.’

‘The Effendi was deeply concerned,’ the old man told the Widow.

The Widow’s eyes flashed impatiently but she said nothing. ‘I cannot promise to do anything for her since this is really the business of the Ministry of
Waqfs
.’

‘This is not woman’s business,’ shouted the old man.

Owen thought he saw a distinct bridle on the part of the Widow Shawquat but ploughed on.

‘I will do what I can, however. It would help if she gave me some more details. The
waqf
, for instance—’

‘What?’ said the old man.

‘The
waqf
,’ shouted the Widow.

‘What? Oh,
waqf
.’’

‘It was in the name of your husband, naturally.’

‘My husband’s family—be quiet, you, the Effendi can’t wait all day—the Shawquats. It went back to his great-great-grandfather’s time. It’s always been in the family. I wouldn’t have married him if it hadn’t been. What was Ali Shawquat to me, a rich woman, with my own property—’

‘What property?’ asked the old man suddenly.

‘My uncle’s shop—’

‘That wasn’t your property!’

‘It would have been—’

‘The
waqf
,’ said Owen.

‘It was the
waqf
, you see. Without that he wouldn’t have been anything. Oh, a nice enough man but weak—oh, so weak! You wouldn’t believe it! Mind you, it’s not always bad when a man is like that, it means you can get on with things in your own way. But then something comes along like this— my son’s just the same, he’s not going to get anywhere without his mother behind him—’

‘The
waqf
was in the name of the Shawquats and entitled them to what?’

‘The
kuttub
. It’s in the fountain-house in the El Merdani.’

‘Your husband received a salary as headmaster?’

‘Yes. Not much, but more than a man like him could earn anywhere else. And more than my layabout of a son could earn, though in his case it’s his own fault, he’s intelligent enough, anyone can see that—’

‘And then, when your husband died—?’

‘Some man comes along in a smart suit and a tarboosh and tells us it doesn’t belong to us any more!’

‘His name?’

‘I don’t know. He probably hasn’t got a name. He probably hasn’t got a father, not one that would acknowledge him—’

‘Yes, yes. Can you give me the name of the relative it passed to?’

‘Mungali Shawquat. Rashid Mungali Shawquat,’ she spat out. ‘But he’s not really a relative, he’s so far removed…and no relative would behave like that, not even a Shawquat. Of course, you may say it’s not his fault, the old fool is senile, but then whose fault is it, I ask? And he’s not so senile as all that, he got some cash for it, I’ll be bound. Of course, all the Shawquats are a bit simple—’

‘And now it’s in the hands of—?’

‘Mr. Adli Nazwas. That was his name.’

‘Have you got his address?’

‘Address?’ The Widow stopped in mid-flow.

‘Were you sent a letter?’

‘A letter? People like me don’t get sent letters. His man came round, this man in the tarboosh, and said: “Now you’ve got to get out. Be gone. By next Friday!”

‘So the school is already closed?’

‘Closed?’ said the Widow Shawquat indignantly. ‘Certainly not! My son’s along there. He doesn’t know anything but he’ll do as a teacher. He was at school himself, wasn’t he? Well then, he can do it.’

‘But I thought you said—’

‘It’ll close,’ said the Widow Shawquat with determination, ‘when they throw us out. And that won’t be so simple. I’ve told my son, Abdul, I said, if the men come, just send for me. I’ll send them off with their tails between their legs, you see if I don’t! That’s right, isn’t it, Mustapha?’ she appealed to the old man.

The old man had, however, fallen into one of the catnaps of the aged.

The Widow shrugged.

‘But, effendi,’ she said, turning back to Owen, ‘what if they send the police?’

Owen thought it probable that the redoubtable widow would send them packing too. Aloud, however, he said sternly: ‘The law must be obeyed.’

‘But what if it’s unjust?’

‘There are proper ways of seeking redress.’

‘That’s just what I said!’ cried the Widow, gratified. ‘My very words! I said, we’re going to have to set about this in the proper way. So I put a letter in your box.’

‘Yes, well—’

The Widow Shawquat eased her bulky frame forward to the edge of the divan and dropped on to her knees in the traditional posture of the suppliant.

‘You can stop them, effendi! You are the Protector of the Poor, the Hope of the Unfortunate—’

Her voice rose into a sing-song.

‘No, no!’ said Owen hastily.

‘The Righter of Wrongs! The Sword of the People!’

‘Please stop.’

‘The Mamur Zapt is the All-Powerful!’

‘Not any more. Look, it’s all changed.’

‘They are strong and we are weak but you will stand between us!’

‘Look—’

She clutched at his jacket, which was not quite as serviceable for the purpose as a galabeah, and kissed it.

‘You are our Father and Mother—’

‘All right, all right. I’ll do what I can.’

The Widow stopped in mid-wail.

‘You will help us?’

‘Yes, but—’

The Widow started to raise her voice in a paean of gratitude, but checked on seeing Owen’s face.

‘I will do what I can,’ said Owen. ‘But these things are not straightforward.’

‘I know that,’ said the Widow, easing herself back up on to the divan. ‘Adli Naswas is tricky and deceitful. So I said, let us go to someone who is tricky, too. And so, effendi, I turned to you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I went first,’ said the Widow, ‘to the Sheikh of our mosque. But he is without guile in these matters. All he could say was that he would speak to the Mufti—’

‘The Mufti!’

The Mufti was the chief authority on religious law. One thing Owen could do without was for this to become a religious dispute.

‘But what good will that do?’ asked the Widow bitterly. ‘The Mufti will speak to the Ministry and then what? They will do nothing. For Adli Naswas has already spoken to them. And money speaks more loudly than words in our city.’

She dug the old man heavily in the ribs.

‘Here, you, wake up! A fine thing! Supposed to be my protector and falls asleep! Why,’ said the Widow Shawquat with relish, ‘I might have been raped four times!’

This is the fourth lunch he’s had at our expense this week!’ said Nikos indignantly. ‘This way financial disaster lies.’

‘I’m following up a lead,’ protested Georgiades. ‘It’s the only one we’ve got.’

‘You’re following it up with too much enthusiasm,’ said Nikos.

‘I’m like that,’ said Georgiades.

‘You’re like that when you think you’re getting something for nothing.’

Georgiades shrugged. ‘A man’s entitled to a free lunch occasionally.’

‘There is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone has to pay for it. I do.’

‘Who is this “I”?’ Georgiades asked Owen. ‘Has he taken over running the Department or something?’

‘I am the voice of Lord Cromer,’ Nikos announced grandly.

‘He left Egypt four years ago.’

‘His spirit lives.’

Georgiades turned to Owen. ‘You’re not going to let him get away with this?’

‘Four is a bit much.’

‘Just when I was getting somewhere,’ said Georgiades dejectedly.

‘Where are you getting?’

Georgiades helped himself to a drink of water from the large earthenware pitcher which, as in all Cairo offices, stood in the window to be cooled by the air which came through the shutters.

‘Is this OK?’ he asked Nikos, with the glass in his hand. ‘Or does Lord Cromer object to people having free drinks, too?’ Nikos disdained to reply.

‘Are you getting anywhere?’

Georgiades perched himself on the end of Nikos’s desk. ‘I’ve got three names,’ he said. ‘I’m following them up.’

‘Anything interesting?’

‘Two are from the Agricultural Bank.’

‘Directors? Or officials?’

‘Officials. Working lunches, my friend the
patron
says.’

‘You’ve no idea what they were working on?’

‘Not yet. I am, as it happens, having lunch with one of them tomorrow.’

‘Another!’ cried Nikos.

‘You want me to stop?’ Georgiades asked Owen.

‘You’d better go ahead. But try to cut them down,’ advised Owen.

‘It might be nothing. A lot of papers. Sounds like the civil service to me. The third man might be more interesting, though.’

‘Name?’

‘Jabir. Jabir Sabry. Young. Effendi. Suit, of course. But no papers.’

‘Have you talked to him?’

‘No. I need to know more about him before I do that. With the people from the Agricultural Bank it was OK. I could be a businessman talking to businessmen. They understand that sort of thing. But I don’t even know that this bloke is a businessman.’

‘Did they drink? Aisha said that Fingari had started coming home the worse for wear. He’d been mixing with a bad lot, she said.’

‘They drank. They all drank.’

‘Yes, but people from a bank wouldn’t count as a bad lot, not to her.’

‘It was lunch. They’d do proper drinking separately.’

‘You might try and find out about that.’

‘Yes. Actually,’ said Georgiades, ‘there’s something you might be able to find out.’

‘Yes?’

‘Better than me. Apparently, this man Jabir was an old friend of Fingari’s. At least, that’s the impression the
patron
got, hearing them talking. College, or possibly, even, school.’

‘You want me to ask Aisha about it?’

‘Could you?’

‘I’ll try. The trouble is, it’s always difficult getting to talk to women on their own. I’ll have a go, anyway.’

But, as he approached the Fingaris’ house, he was having second thoughts. If he went to the door and asked to see Miss Fingari, he would certainly be refused. The uncle, Istaq, would probably not be there, and he had had enough difficulty with him last time. Aisha wouldn’t see him on her own, not publicly, that was; and he was loath to involve the parents.

He walked on past the house, turned and walked round the square, thinking. And then, seeing a convenient table, he sat down in a little Arab café and ordered coffee.

An irrelevant thought struck him. Should he pay for this coffee himself or should he charge it to expenses? Normally, he would pay for it himself, thinking that drinking coffee was strictly in the course of the day’s duties and disliking filling in forms over piffling details. But should he be taking this relaxed view?

He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for his duties and thinking was work, wasn’t it? If he didn’t claim for it, he was, in fact, giving money to the Government. Did he want to give money to the Government? He did not.

Besides, it was all very well for a bachelor to take a relaxed view about money. But if he was thinking of getting married, especially to Zeinab, relaxing about money was the last thing he could afford.

Unfortunately, if he was getting married to Zeinab, cutting down on the coffee bills wouldn’t help much, either.

He moved his chair as a water-cart went past spraying out water behind to damp down the dust in the streets. The main thoroughfares were done first thing in the morning; they only got to little squares like this much later.

As always, the cart was followed by a crowd of urchins dancing in and out of the spray. The sight of them gave him an idea.

He beckoned them over to him.

‘Do you know a boy named Ali?’

‘We know lots of boys named Ali.’

‘He lives around here somewhere.’

‘You were here the other day, weren’t you, effendi?’

‘Yes, he saw Aisha.’

‘Do you want to see Aisha again, effendi? I could fix that up. You don’t need Ali.’

‘Yes, you do.’

It was the original, authentic Ali, materializing from nowhere. ‘Don’t listen to him, effendi. He is a lying, cheating scoundrel. Besides, Aisha doesn’t like him.’

‘She doesn’t like you much either, Ali.’

‘I am useful to her,’ declared Ali in a lordly fashion. ‘She trusts me. The Effendi does too.’

Owen distributed some milliemes and Ali drove his rivals away.

‘Now, effendi, what can I do for you?’

‘I’d like to see Aisha.’

‘Difficult, difficult. She is guarded as by the beast of a hundred eyes.’

‘Who’s guarding her?’

Ali disregarded this question.

‘It could be managed; though at a price.’

He named a figure.

‘But, Ali,’ said Owen, astounded, ‘I could have all the women in the quarter for that sum!’

‘That, too, later,’ said Ali.

‘Let us now turn to the boll weevil,’ said the speaker on the platform.

Owen looked along the row of chairs for a means of escape. All the seats were taken, however, and to extricate himself would cause such a disruption that he thought better and resigned himself to the rest of the lecture.

‘The rise of Egypt from bankruptcy to prosperity,’ declared the speaker, ‘can fairly be attributed to two causes: Cromer and cotton!’

‘Hear, hear!’

‘Modern irrigation, investment from overseas and the freeing of the fellahin, these were the things which provided a sound basis for the expansion of cotton production—’

‘The freeing of the fellahin?’ interrupted an incredulous voice from the back.

The speaker put down his notes.

‘Yes, sir, the freeing of the fellahin. By giving fellahin the right to possess their own land, Lord Cromer transformed them from poverty-stricken serfs owing allegiance to feudal Turkish pashas to—’

‘Poverty-stricken peasants owing everything to the bank! That’s not freedom!’

There were cries of protest.

‘Mr. Chairman,’ someone called out, ‘isn’t this a political point?’

‘Yes, it is,’ said the Chairman. ‘This is not a political meeting, Mr. Sidki. May I ask you, please, to keep your remarks in order?’

‘Thank you, Mr. Chairman,’ said the lecturer, mopping his brow—it was extremely hot in the large tent—‘I was certainly under the impression, when I agreed to address the Khedivial Agricultural Society, that I was being asked for a scientific contribution. I’m not in the business of making political speeches.’

‘Quite so.’

‘I just want to say this: Egypt wouldn’t be where it is today if it didn’t have the wealth, experience and expertise of England behind it!’

‘Hear, hear!’

‘But that
is
a political speech!’ cried the persistent voice from the back.

The Chairman decided it was time to move the meeting on. ‘If I were you, Mr. Hiscock, I would stick to cotton,’ he advised.

‘Yes, well, it’s all connected. My point is that everything in Egypt depends on cotton. The economy is based on the success of the cotton crop. And now it’s all being threatened by the boll weevil.’

The speaker, more at home with figures than words, produced statistics to show the crop loss resulting from the weevil’s depredations.

‘Could you put a value on that, Mr. Hiscock?’ asked the Chairman.

‘£3.29 millions for the year just ended, at last year’s prices.’

‘Three million!’

Someone whistled.

‘That’s a lot! Think of the difference it would make to the country’s finances at the present time!’

‘There is no doubt,’ said the speaker, ‘that the shortfall over the past three years has contributed materially to the present recession.’

‘Is there anything that can be done about it?’ someone asked.

The speaker glowed. There certainly was. But first he would have to explain the life cycle of the boll weevil.

Owen looked along the row again but the situation had not changed. If anything, the tent had become more crowded. When he had decided to go to the public meeting he had not expected that there would be such a large audience. The Khedivial Agricultural Society was clearly a thriving body.

The cycle began, the speaker explained, when the moth laid its eggs on the shoots of the young cotton plant in spring. When the eggs hatched out, the worms burrowed into the plant and fed upon it. The worm then came out again and formed a chrysalis from which it emerged later as the boll-worm moth.

‘For our purposes, though,’ said the speaker, ‘the crucial thing is the timing.’

The gradual increase in temperature during the summer meant that most eggs hatched out in September, just when the cotton crop was becoming ready for picking. The first picking, early in the month, was not greatly affected; the second, later, showed significant depredation; and the third, in a bad year, could be a total loss.

‘If, therefore,’ said the speaker, ‘we could bring the ripening of the crop forward, were it only by a couple of weeks, we would increase the yield significantly.’

‘And how might this be done?’

‘By changing the seed,’ said Mr. Hiscock triumphantly. There was a rustle of interest around the tent.

‘I can report that the Society has developed a new strain of seed which allows the crop to mature earlier.’

The audience burst into applause. The Chairman allowed it to continue for some minutes and then rapped his gavel.

‘But this is very important!’ said a man, standing up, at the front. ‘Lancashire depends on Egypt for its cotton.’

‘It’s pretty important to the fellahin, too,’ said the irrepressible voice from the back.

‘And the Society owns the rights in this?’ asked the man at the front.

‘Yes.’

‘Excellent! Excellent!’

He sat down but then at once jumped up again.

‘How soon can we have sufficient stocks to start selling?’

‘Virtually immediately. Although, of course, it will take a year or two to build up stocks to the level at which we can replace all other seeds.’

‘Excellent!’

‘Excuse me,’ said a new, diffident voice. ‘Has the seed been properly field-tested?’

‘Ah, Mr. Aziz,’ said the Chairman, with a certain lack of warmth. ‘From the Department of Agriculture.’

‘Of course it’s been properly tested!’ said the lecturer indignantly.

‘I ask only because I saw the results of the last trials and they showed that the seed had a tendency to deteriorate on re-sowing.’

‘Those were the first trials. We have, of course, improved the strain since.’

And there is no deterioration? It’s important, you see,’ said Mr. Aziz, shy but sticking to his guns, ’because the fellahin always keep back some seed to sow the following year.’

‘They can always come back to us for new ones. In fact, that might be an advantage.’

‘One moment, Mr. Chairman!’ called the persistent Mr. Sidki from the back. ‘Is Mr. Aziz saying that the fellahin could be tricked into buying seed which it is known has a tendency to deteriorate?’

There were shouts of protest.

‘Mr. Aziz is saying nothing of the sort,’ said the Chairman coldly. ‘He was merely asking a question.’

‘It’s not the question that I’m bothered about; it’s the answer.’

‘Mr. Sidki, really! The Society, I can assure you, is as committed to the interests of the fellahin as you are yourself!’

‘It just sounded as if they were the ones who were being asked to bear the costs if things went wrong.’

‘They’re the ones who stand to gain most!’ someone called out.

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Mr. Sidki. ‘I think the ones who stand to gain most are the ones who sell them the seed and lend them the money with which to buy it!’

It was some time, amid the uproar, before the Chairman could be heard banging his gavel.

‘I think,’ he said, ‘that this would be a good point at which to close the meeting.’

Afterwards, they all moved out on to the lawn for a cup of tea. The meeting was taking place, by kind permission of the Consul-General, in the grounds of what Old India hands— and there were lots of Old India hands—persisted in calling the Residency.

Small groups gathered among the rose-beds. Their behaviour was different, however, from that of the groups which annually gathered on the Consul-General’s lawn; they actually looked at the roses.

By no means all the audience was English. There was a considerable sprinkling of sober-suited, be-tarbooshed Egyptian effendi. Owen wondered who they were. Employees of the society? Managers who worked for the big pashas who still owned over two-thirds of Egypt’s cultivable land?

He recognized Aziz, the one who came from the Department of Agriculture. He was standing on his own and appeared to be rather out of it.

Owen went across to him.

‘I was interested in the point you made,’ he said. ‘Do you think there’s a real risk of the seed deteriorating?’