The Fig Tree Murder (9 page)

‘Ah, well, then,’ said Owen. ‘I’m afraid I shall have to refer this to our own Consulate.’

Back came the answer, sooner than he had wished.

‘We’ve referred it to our lawyers,’ said Paul.

‘Great!’

‘They’ve warned us that it could take some time.’

‘Marvellous!’

‘However, they have suggested that you put a guard on the Tree.’

‘How long for?’

‘Until the issue is resolved.’

‘How long could that be?’

‘Ten years.’

‘No, the British are not seizing your property. The guard is there merely to protect it.’

‘It’s been all right for two thousand years,’ said the Copt. ‘Why does it suddenly need protection?’

Owen pointed to the names carved on the bark.

‘It’s being defaced.’

‘That’s how I make my money,’ protested Daniel indignantly.

‘Ah, yes. But you shouldn’t. Not while ownership of the property is being disputed.’

‘It’s not being disputed. It’s mine.’

‘Apparently it was given to the Empress Eugenie in 1869.’

‘This is a Muslim plot!’ cried Daniel, reeling back.

‘The Muslims are nothing to do with it,’ said Owen sternly. He wasn’t going to have this adding fuel to the fire.

Or so he thought.

‘A deputation to see you,’ announced Nikos, his Official Clerk.

‘Deputation?’

‘From the Patriarch.’

The outer office was full of Copts.

‘This is outrageous!’ said their leader, one of three bishops.

‘What exactly—?’

‘The seizing of Coptic property.’

‘Ah, the Tree? I have explained that the guard is there merely to protect it.’

‘It certainly needs protection; but who from?’

‘Well—’

‘First you let the Muslims defile it. Then you let the Catholics take it away!’

‘We’re really not at that stage yet.’

‘Ah! Then it is true? The Catholics are going to take it at some time?’

‘The Tree, apparently, was a gift to the Empress Eugenie—’

‘Yes, but who gave it?’

‘The Khedive Ismail—’

‘But did it belong to him?’ Seeing his advantage, the bishop pressed home. ‘Was it his to give?’

‘Well, I—’

‘It has belonged to Copts for over a thousand years.’

‘Look, this is a matter for lawyers—’

‘One would think so. But the judgement has, apparently, already been made.’

‘Not at all.’

‘Why, then, has a guard been placed at the Tree?’

‘To protect it pending a resolution of the issue. Until then the assumption is that ownership remains as it is at present.’

‘We demand that the rights of Coptic citizens be protected!’

‘I give you that assurance.’

‘What is it worth, though?’ asked one of the other bishops. ‘Will Britain stand up for Copts the way France does for Roman Catholics?’

‘The policy of His Majesty’s government is not to interfere in religious matters. In the case of Egypt, it has consistently urged the Khedive not to discriminate against particular groups of his subjects—’

‘He has given away our Tree!’

When Owen next visited the Tree he found not just the guard he had posted but also six other men.

‘Who are they?’

‘Friends,’ said Daniel, grinning.

They were all Copts. Copts tended to be small. These weren’t.

‘What are they doing here?’

‘Helping to protect the Tree. You said it needed protection.’

Owen had managed to arrive just before Sheikh Isa. The sheikh descended from his donkey and looked at the men. ‘Who are these men?’ he said.

‘My assistants,’ said Daniel.

‘What do you need assistants for?’

‘To hold the knives. See?’

The men produced daggers from their clothes and brandished them ostentatiously.

‘We’ll have no trouble!’ Owen warned.

‘Trouble? This is just in case anyone wants to carve their name. A knife is available at a fee. And without one, if that’s absolutely necessary.’

‘This is a Muslim tree,’ said Sheikh Isa.

‘You reckon?’ said one of the Copts.

‘The ownership is under dispute,’ said Owen, ‘and will be settled in the courts.’

‘So you don’t own it then?’ cried Sheikh Isa.

‘I certainly do,’ retorted Daniel. ‘And no Frenchman is going to take it away from me.’

‘Frenchman?’ said Sheikh Isa, bewildered.

‘The Tree was given to the Empress Eugenie,’ Owen explained. ‘Or so the French say.’

‘Frenchmen? Foreigners?’ said Sheikh Isa incredulously.

‘Catholics!’ spat Daniel. ‘They’re all Catholics!’

‘Christians? Not more Christians!’ cried Sheikh Isa.

‘They’re not taking my Tree away!’ said Daniel.

‘Take it away?’

‘No one’s taking it away,’ said Owen, intervening swiftly. ‘The French have just made a claim for it, that’s all. It will be settled in the courts.’

‘It will be settled on the battlefield!’ shouted Sheikh Isa. ‘Take it away? The desert will run with blood first!’

The next day, in addition to the guard and the six Copts, there were another six men.

‘Who are you?’ said Owen.

‘We are Sheikh Isa’s men. The Sons of Islam.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Looking after the Tree. The Catholics are coming to take it away. These Copt bastards are going to give it to them.’

‘I’m going to give it to you!’ said Daniel, getting to his feet.

‘Cut it out!’ snapped Owen. ‘Any nonsense from any of you and you’ll all be in the
caracol
! You!’ he said to the guard. ‘See there’s no trouble!’

‘What, me?’ said the guard. ‘On my own?’

The next day, in addition to the guard, the six Copts and the six Sons of Islam, there were three other guards.

‘Four men?’ said Garvin, the Commandant of Police, whose men they were. ‘For how long? How long did you say it was going to be before the case was decided?’

The village was got up as if for a festival. Banners were hung across the street, bunting festooned all the houses. Holy texts dangled from the windows.

‘What’s all this?’ said Owen to his friend the barber.

‘It’s the pilgrims,’ said the barber. Any day now they’ll start arriving.’

‘On their way to Birket-el-Hadj?’

‘That’s right. It’s where they all gather.’

Owen frowned. He had forgotten about the Mecca caravan.

‘They pass through here?’

‘And through the other villages. They come from all sides.’ Owen’s frown deepened. The last thing he could do with just at the moment was hordes of the devout converging on the neighbourhood.

‘When does the caravan leave?’

‘Oh, not for several weeks yet. It takes time for them all to assemble.’

Sheikh Isa stood at the door of his house.

‘Is there not joy in your heart, Englishman?’ he demanded, gesturing at all the decorations.

Not a lot, thought Owen. Out loud he said:

‘It is always a pleasure to see the signs of joy.’

‘There is joy in our hearts. For this is the time when the faithful gather to make the Great Journey.’

‘Happiness, indeed,’ said Owen, bowing his head politely.

‘We rejoice with them.’

‘Quite so!’

‘But mutedly.’

‘Mutedly?’ said Owen.

‘For three reasons.’

Owen tried to edge past.

‘First,’ said the sheikh determinedly, ‘because they are only on their outward way. Their hearts have not yet felt the holy touch. It is only on the return journey that their joy, and ours, knows no end.’

‘Joy, indeed!’

‘Second, however,’ said Sheikh Isa, ‘our joy is limited because we think of those who do not travel with them.’

‘Ah, the sadness!’ murmured Owen sympathetically.

‘Backsliders!’ shouted Sheikh Isa. ‘Backsliders, all of them! The faint of heart in the villages! The godless in the infidel towns! Snakes, vermin, worse than vermin; Christians! Worse than Christians; Copts!’

‘Yes, well—’

‘The third reason,’ said Sheikh Isa inexorably, ‘why our joy is muted is this: the caravan is no longer what it was. Each year the numbers are fewer.’

He looked accusingly at Owen.

‘They are going by train, perhaps,’ suggested Owen helpfully.

This was a mistake. Sheikh Isa glared at him.

‘That,’ he said harshly, ‘is where the error begins.’

Owen continued to edge away.

‘The world changes,’ he said, ‘and we must change with it.’

‘Not so!’ bellowed Sheikh Isa. ‘If we are tempted, do we have to fall? The railway is put there to tempt us; do we have to yield? The devil builds a city; do we have to go to it?’

‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ said Owen.

Sheikh Isa stared into the distance.

‘But what,’ he almost whispered, ‘if it comes to me? What if the railway creeps across the desert towards me? What if it enters the village and lures the hearts of the foolish people with gold? What if the devil’s houses reach out to touch my own? What do I do then?’

Owen’s offering to pay for Ja’affar’s treatment had made him a friend if not of the whole village, then very definitely of the barber and, as he went past, the barber hailed him and invited him to take tea. The chair was empty for the moment, no chins requiring shaving, no injuries, treatment and no penises, circumcision, and the barber was free to bustle about preparing tea for his cronies.

Owen joined the ring squatting on the ground. One of the ring was Ja’affar.

‘How’s it going, Ja’affar?’

‘Terribly. I’ll soon have to go back to work.’

‘Old man Zaghlul was round after him this morning,’ volunteered one of the others.

‘The old bastard! He’s worse than the Belgians!’ said Ja’afFar indignandy.

‘He’ll be in the village every day now for a bit. He’ll be keeping his eye on you!’

Owen settled back and let the tide of conversation flow over him.

‘I saw Zaghlul just now,’ said someone.

‘Yes, he’s talking to Sheikh Isa.’

‘What’s he talking about?’

‘It’ll be to do with the pilgrims.’

‘Don’t tell me he’s trying to sell them ostriches!’

‘No, no. Camels. Some of them will need new camels for the journey. He can get them from his friends in the desert.’

‘Those thieving Bedouin! I bet he makes a piastre or two!’

‘You know what? I’ve heard they sell them to the pilgrims here and then steal them back later.’

‘And I wouldn’t be surprised if that old man Zaghlul had a hand in both, the murderous old skinflint!’

‘What happens?’ asked Owen. ‘Does Sheikh Isa go over to the Birket-el-Hadj and take orders?’

‘More or less. He’s over there most days at this time of year and no doubt he keeps his ears open. If he gets to hear of someone wanting camels he lets Zaghlul know about it.’

‘Old Zaghlul’s in the mosque most mornings now. It’s amazing how devout he gets when the pilgrims are around!’

‘Well, that was how he made his fortune wasn’t it? Supplying the pilgrims.’

‘That was in the old days. These days he’s into ostriches. Got out at the right time, too, I’d say. Once that new town gets built, the storekeepers there will have their eyes on the Birket-el-Hadj.’

‘They’ll have their eyes on richer people than pilgrims, if what I hear is true.’

‘What do you hear?’ asked Owen.

‘That Heliopolis is going to be for the rich.’

‘The poor will get shouldered out,’ said the barber. ‘That’s always the way of it.’

‘Old man Zaghlul will get shouldered out, from what I hear. Ostriches and horses don’t mix.’

‘He won’t like that,’ said Ja’affar.

‘It’ll be for the second time, too. He won’t take that lying down.’

‘He’s in the wrong place, that’s the trouble. The rich have got their eye on it and the rich always get what they want.’

‘We’re in the wrong place, too. And do you know why? Because they’re not building out on our side. If they were, we could be doing very well for ourselves. They’d be offering us money for our land like they’re doing in Tel-el-Hasan.’

‘Tel-el-Hasan? That’s where that Copt comes from. I’ll bet
he’s
doing all right!’

‘He’s doing all right anyway. What with that Tree!’

‘Ah, but he won’t have the Tree much longer. They’re going to take it away.’

‘Take it away? They must be crazy!’

‘Well, they
are
crazy. They’re foreigners. That’s right, isn’t it?’ he appealed to Owen.

‘Some foreigners do want to take it away. But it won’t happen.’

‘Take the Tree away! Whatever next!’

‘It won’t happen,’ said Owen, ‘at least, not for years.’

‘One day, though, it will,’ said the barber. ‘That’s it, you see. Everything’s changing. You think things are going to go on forever as they are and then one day they start building a town and the next thing you know there’s a massive town on your doorstep, and it spreads and spreads—one day, you mark my words, there’ll be houses from here to Cairo!’

‘Oh, come on!’

‘Ridiculous!’

‘You’re letting yourself be carried away, Suleiman!’

‘Houses all the way from here to Cairo,’ repeated the barber, highly satisfied at the effect of this conjuring up of the Apocalypse.

‘You don’t think so, do you?’ they appealed to Owen.

‘Houses all the way to Cairo? No!’

‘I don’t think so either,’ said one of the men. ‘And do you know why? Because before the houses get to Cairo, they’ll get to Birket-el-Hadj. And there they’ll stop.’

‘Why?’ asked the barber.

‘Don’t be daft, Suleiman. Because that’s where the pilgrims are. That’s where the caravan starts.’

‘So?’

‘They’re not going to change that, are they?’

‘Well—’ began the barber.

But his words were lost in the chorus of disbelief and disapproval.

For Owen, squatting on the sand, drinking the bitter, black, but oddly refreshing tea of the fellahin, listening to the creak of the sagiya from the well and the gurgles of the doves in the palms, the sounds and tastes and sensations of Egypt immemorial, it seemed inconceivable too.

Yet the railway was stretching over the desert and the houses were being built. The world was changing, as he had so glibly said to Sheikh Isa. For perhaps the first time he realized fully how it must appear to the villagers, how it must appear to Isa, and felt a twinge of sympathy.

‘Sheikh Isa does not like it,’ he said.

‘He does not.’

‘He hasn’t liked it from the first,’ said someone, ‘not from the day Ibrahim said he was going to work for them. He had us all in and said it was the devil’s work we’d be doing. But Ibrahim said it was just like any other work and that he needed the money. Several others thought that, too. Sheikh Isa was very angry and said that it would be on our own heads.’

‘So you didn’t go, Mohammed?’

‘They wouldn’t have me. I’m glad now. He was right, wasn’t he? Look what happened to Ibrahim.’

‘That’s nothing to do with it!’ said the barber. ‘What happened to Ibrahim happened because he was fooling around with other women and got across those mad brothers of his wife. I always said he shouldn’t have married out of the village!’

‘Not to someone from Tel-el-Hasan, anyway,’ said Ja’affar. ‘There’s always trouble when you mix with that lot.’

‘Yes, but it wouldn’t have happened if God hadn’t willed it,’ said Mohammed, unwilling to relinquish his position.

The free-thinking barber, however, would have none of it.

‘God’s got better things to do than breaking Ibrahim’s neck,’ he said firmly.

Owen, listening soporifically in the sun, and slipping ever deeper into the villagers’ world, was becoming more and more convinced that the answer to the riddle of Ibrahim’s death lay here in the village and not in the city. Mahmoud could look there if he wished.

A violent tooting disturbed the slumbers of the houses.

‘What’s that?’ said Owen, startled.

‘It’ll be the Pasha’s son,’ said someone.

‘Come to see Jalila,’ said the barber.

A motor car
—the
motor car—nosed its way into the street with a horde of urchins running alongside. It came to a stop beside the barber’s.

‘Hello, Owen!’ called Malik.

Owen got to his feet.

‘Thirsty? I wouldn’t drink that stuff. It’s the water, you know. Best avoided. I’ve got something better here. Fancy a drop?’

‘No, thanks. Not while I’m working.’

‘Working? Here? What on?’

‘It’s the case of that chap who was found on the line.’

‘The villager? But my dear fellow, you don’t bother about villagers! They’re always killing each other. Leave them to it, is my motto.’

‘Ah, yes, but, you see, it was interfering with work on the line.’

‘Oh,
that
fellow! Damned nuisance. Why they didn’t just push him off and get on with it I can’t understand. But, my dear chap, you shouldn’t be concerning yourself with this sort of thing! Leave that to the Parquet. What you ought to be doing is seeing that the Nationalists don’t exploit it.’

‘Well, thanks.’

‘They’re only too ready, you know.’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘Stick to essentials, that’s my advice.’

‘Thank you. And you: sticking to essentials, too?’

Malik laughed.

‘I’m over here to see a woman, if that’s what you mean. But I wouldn’t call her essential. Not in particular, that is. Just women in general.’

‘And none nearer at hand? But, Malik, how sad!’

‘There are plenty nearer at hand,’ said Malik, offended. ‘I just happened to be passing, that’s all.’

‘All the same, I’m surprised you think her worth your attention.’

‘A mere village woman, you mean? Well, you know, she has her points.’

‘I must confess, though, Malik, I
am
a little surprised. Someone like you! Sharing her with the villagers!’

Malik looked at him.

‘You know about that?’ he said, slightly disconcerted. ‘Well’— recovering—‘one mustn’t be narrow-minded about these things. She’s still a village woman, after all.’

Owen didn’t quite follow.

‘Well,’ said Malik seriously. ‘They all belong to me, you know. In principle. The whole village belongs to me.’

‘I don’t belong to you, you bastard,’ muttered the barber, sotto voce.

‘You mean, the women—?’

‘Of course, I don’t choose to exercise my rights. Not these days. But the right is still there. It’s a matter of tradition. Tradition is very important to these people, you know, Owen. You wouldn’t understand that, as an Englishman coming in from outside. But I know how important it is to them. They really
want
me to sleep with their wives. They expect it of me. And I, well, I really hate turning them down. It goes against the grain, Owen. But then I am also a man of the modern world. The fact is, I am torn. Torn, like all Egyptians, between the Old and the New.’

‘Gosh, how difficult for you! And so you have to compromise? Instead of sleeping with all the women, you just sleep with the one who doesn’t have a husband?’

‘That’s it! Exactly! Of course, I know that many will be disappointed, but—’

‘I understand. But, my dear Mâlik, let me not add to the numbers of the disappointed by detaining you when you have pressing duties elsewhere—’

The car disappeared round the corner. The men circled round the chair watched it go.

‘He thinks he owns us,’ said someone bitterly.

‘There’ll come a time when all those Pashas are swept away,’ said the barber.

‘Not them! They’ll hang on somehow or other. First, they’ll sell themselves to the foreigners. Then they’ll sell us.’

Owen, however, was wondering about his tidy separation of the village from the city.

As he was walking back to the station, Owen saw a woman working in the fields. She straightened up as he went past.

‘It’s no good, Effendi,’ she said. ‘Whatever you do, it is not going to bring him back.’

He stopped, surprised at being spoken to, although he knew that the women in the villages were much freer than those in the town. He guessed at once, though, who she was.

‘You must be Leila,’ he said. ‘Ibrahim’s wife.’

She nodded.

‘I saw you,’ she said, ‘when you were talking to my father-in-law. And then you came again. You keep coming, don’t you?’

‘I keep coming,’ Owen said. ‘But really it is my colleague’s concern, not mine.’

‘Still you come, though. Well, I will tell my children and they will not forget. They are only daughters but they will tell their sons.’

‘Thank you.’ Owen looked around. ‘They are not with you?’

‘They are too small. Later—soon—they will come. When the man dies, the women have to work.’

‘It is hard when the man goes.’

‘And when he leaves no sons. We had hoped for sons but after Mariam’s birth—well, I had a hard time that time and afterwards things were never quite the same. I was not right inside. Ibrahim paid for me to go to the
hakim
but he could do nothing. That is why,’ she said, looking him in the face, ‘he went to Jalila.’

Owen muttered something.

‘It does not matter. Except that it angered my brothers. You have put my brothers in the
caracol
,’ she said, not in accusation but as a matter of fact.

‘Yes. Lest Ibrahim’s family kill them in anger.’

‘I do not think they would kill them. My brothers are strong men, stronger than they.’

‘It is not that. It is that one has to stop the killing. One killing leads to another. One has to break the chain.’

‘Perhaps,’ she said.

‘It is the first step that is wrong.’

‘Yes, but what is the first step? The killing or what led to it?’

‘Both are wrong. But when wrong is done, there are better remedies than killing.’

‘Well, maybe.’

‘
Did
your brothers look for revenge?’

‘They looked.’

‘But did they take it?’

She gave no sign of having heard. Instead, she said, almost wistfully:

‘He was not a bad man. Foolish, yes, but not bad. His head was too hot and his tongue was too quick.’

‘Was it too quick for your brothers?’

‘For them?’ She seemed startled. ‘No. I do not think so. Ibrahim and Ali were friends,’ she added, after a moment.

‘Friends?’ said Owen, surprised.

‘Yes. That was how I came to wed. They met at the ostrich farm.’

‘When Ibrahim was working there?’

‘Ali worked there too. But only for a short time. He had worked for Zaghlul before, when Zaghlul was supplying the pilgrims. He used to manage the mules. But then when Zaghlul stopped, there was no work for him. Zaghlul offered him a job at the ostrich farm but Ali did not like it. He said, “This is no work for a man like me.” “Very well, then,” said Zaghlul, “you find your own work.” Then Ali worked in the fields, but he did not like that either. He was always going off to the city. We would have spoken to him about it but he usually brought back money. Good money,’ she said, considering.

‘So he no longer works in the fields?’

‘Oh, he does sometimes. At harvest time, of course. But also other times. And he still brings back money.’

‘It was before he went to the city, then, that he was friends with Ibrahim?’