The Mamur Zapt and the Return of the Carpet (9 page)

“Not
English?” said Mahmoud, astonished.

“Welsh.”

“Welsh?
Pays
Galles?”

Owen
nodded.

“I have
never met anyone from Wales before,” said Mahmoud. “You probably wouldn’t know
if you had. They’re very like Englishmen.
Smaller, darker.
Not enough to stand out. But there is a difference. In the part of Wales I come
from,” said Owen, “most people do not speak English.”

“Vraiment?”

Mahmoud
hesitated.

“But—you
speak English very well.
How—?”

“We
spoke both Welsh and English at home,” said Owen. “My father normally spoke
English. He wanted me to grow up to be an Englishman. My mother spoke Welsh.”

“And she
wanted you to grow up to be a Welshman?” asked Mahmoud.

“Probably,”
said Owen, laughing. “She was hopelessly romantic. She wanted Wales to be an
independent country again.”

“And that
seems romantic to you?”

“In
the case of Wales, yes.”

Mahmoud
considered.

“In the
case of Egypt, too,” he said at length. “Romantic.
Definitely
romantic.”

Their
rapport quite restored, they continued happily drinking coffee.

At
the other end of the café a party broke up with the usual prolonged Arabic
farewells. Most of the party went off together across the square, but one of
them made his way along the pavement in their direction, skirting the gambling
and waving aside the shoe-boys. As he passed their table his eye caught Owen’s.
It was Fakhri.

He stopped
in his tracks.

“The
Mamur Zapt?” he cried. “And—” taking in Mahmoud—“the Parquet?
Together?
There must have been a revolution! And no one has
told me!”

“Come and
join us,” Owen invited, “and we’ll tell you.”

Fakhri
dropped into a chair.

“I don’t
want to interrupt you,” he said, “unless you’re talking business.”

“Business and pleasure.
Mostly pleasure.”

“Ah,”
said Fakhri, waving a hand back at the dispersed party. “Like me.
Pleasure and business.
Mostly business.”

“What
is your business?” asked Owen curiously.

“He
has not heard,” said Fakhri sorrowfully.

“Fakhri
Bey is a distinguished editor,” said Mahmoud.

“Oh,
that
Fakhri!” said Owen, whose own business was to know the political
press.
“My apologies.
I read your editorials with
pleasure.
Sometimes.”

“I
am afraid you may not read tomorrow’s with pleasure,” said Fakhri.

“The students?”
Owen shrugged.

“Quite
so,” said Fakhri. “Let us forget about them.”

He
and Owen both waved for more coffee simultaneously.

“At
least what you say,” said Owen, “will be less predictable than what I read in
al
Liwa
. ”

Fakhri
made a face.

“They
say everything at the top of their voice,” he said. “There is no light and
shade.”

“What’s
happening at
al Liwa,”
asked Owen, “now that Mustafa Kamil has died?”

Mustafa
Kamil, the brilliant young politician who had built up the National Party
virtually from scratch, had died a month or two previously, from a heart
attack.

“They
have not sorted themselves out yet. All the top posts keep changing, the
editorship among them.”

“The
complexion of the paper doesn’t, though,” said Owen.

“It
could. It depends on who wins control of the party. If it’s el Gazzari it will
become very religious.
Crazily so.
If it’s Jemal it
will go in for heavy doses of revolutionary theory.”

Owen
sighed. “Neither will make it more readable,” he said. “They lack your touch.”

Fakhri
tried not to look pleased.

“See
how expertly he works,” he said to Mahmoud. “This is how the Mamur Zapt gets
the press eating out of his hand.”

“The
Egyptian press,” said
Owen,
“is the most independent
in the world.
Unfortunately.”

They
all laughed.

A
boy went past sprinkling water to keep down the dust. Fakhri pulled his legs
back hurriedly. For a little while there was the lovely, distinctive smell of
wet sand.

“How
is Nuri Pasha?” asked Fakhri. “I called on him two days ago to express my
sympathy but his Berberine told me that he was talking to you.”

“He
is well,” said Mahmoud.

“Praise
be
to God!” said Fakhri automatically.

He
hesitated.

“And
how are you getting on—?” He broke off. “Perhaps I shouldn’t ask!”

His
laugh allowed the brush-off; but he cocked his head attentively, inviting
information.

Owen
decided to play.

“We
hold the man, of course,” he said.

“Ah,
yes, but—”

“Those behind?”

Fakhri
nodded.

“Not
yet.”

Fakhri
affected, or showed, disappointment.

Owen
decided to try a move of his own.

“The
attempt did not come as a surprise to you,” he said, more as a statement than a
question.

“No,”
said Fakhri. “It did not.”

“Denshawai?”

“Of course.”

“Just Denshawai?”

Fakhri
looked surprised.

“So
far as I know,” he said.

“The
reason why I ask,” said Owen, “is that he doesn’t seem to have been directly
involved.”

“More
directly than he likes to pretend now,” said Fakhri.

“OK.
But surely a minor figure?”

“The
civil servant responsible was only a minor figure and he was the first to be
shot.”

“I
always thought that was in the heat of the moment when the sentences were first
announced,” said Owen. Then, after a pause: “You said ‘first’?”

“Yes,”
said Fakhri, “I did.”

“You
think there are more to come?”

“All
Cairo,” said Fakhri, “thinks there are more to come.”

He
glanced at his watch.

“I
really must go,” he said, getting to his feet. “I have to see the first copy as
it comes off the press.”

“I shall read it tomorrow with interest,”
said Owen.

‘‘If I were you,” said Fakhri, “I would read
tomorrow’s
al Liwa
also. I think you will find that full of interest,
too.”

CHAPTER 5

When
Nikos arrived in the office the next morning he found Owen already there,
finishing a memo. It read:

The
Mamur Zapt has received unconfirmed reports of a disturbing increase in the
number of thefts from military installations in recent months. These include
thefts of guns, ammunition and other equipment which could be used for
offensive purposes. Clearly there could be serious implications for civil
security if these got into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, such thefts are
treated purely as an internal matter by Military Security and not reported to
the Mamur Zapt, with the result that he has been unable to investigate the
possibility of links with known terrorist organizations or establish whether a
pattern is emerging. No analysis has been made by Military Security. In view of
the possible threat to civil order and the likelihood that senior civil and
military personnel could be at risk, it is recommended that:

1.
   
an
independent investigation be
carried out as a matter of urgency into current security at military
installations.

2.
   
the
Mamur Zapt be informed within
twenty-four hours whenever a theft of arms occurs and given a full account of
the circumstances in which the theft occurred.

3.
   Military Security
be
instructed to
supply the Mamur Zapt with a complete list of thefts which had occurred over
the past year.

“What’s all this?” said Nikos, reading it
through.
“ ‘Unconfirmed
Reports?’ Where did you get
all this stuff from? It’s not come through the office.”

“No,” Owen agreed.

“Of
course, you’ve a right to use alternative channels,” said Nikos huffily.

“I
haven’t been using alternative channels,” said Owen. “I made it up.”

“You what?”

“Made it up.
To fix that
bastard, Brooker,” Owen explained.

“It
isn’t true?”

“Now
look what you’ve done!” said Georgiades, who had come into the room at the same
time as Nikos. “You’ve shocked him! Poor, innocent soul!” he said to Nikos,
resting a fatherly hand on him.

“Never
mind my innocent soul!” snapped Nikos. “What the hell is going on?”

Nikos
rarely swore.

“I’ve
told you,” said Owen reasonably.

“You’re
doing this just to get even with Brooker?”

Owen
nodded. Since coming to Egypt he had discovered that he had something of a bent
for administrative politics.

Nikos
took a moment to gather
himself
together.

“All
right, then,” he said, dumping the day’s newspapers on Owen’s desk.

“I
hope you know what you are doing,” he said, as he went out.

“So
this is how one gets to be Mamur Zapt!” said Georgiades. He shook his head,
marvelling. “Ah, what a thing it is to lack scruple! I’ve often wondered what
it is that’s been holding me back.”

He
followed Nikos off down the corridor chuckling.

Owen
turned his attention to the newspapers. Every morning when he got in he read
them all: all the Arabic ones, all the French ones and all the English
ones, that
is. Georgiades read the Greek ones and Nikos the
Coptic, Armenian and Italian ones. Owen’s legal adviser read the Turkish ones,
which were especially important. Another experienced man read the Jewish ones.

Nikos
also read the London
Times,
the
Morning Post
and the
Illustrated
London
News,
although Owen assured him they were
of no help at all.

Owen
read for “feel” only. The papers would be read again, more thoroughly, by the
censors, who would pick up cases where action was unavoidable and alert him to
anything he had missed. Owen himself seldom remembered detail. His concern was
rather to take the political temperature of the city.

To
do that meant taking several temperatures, not one. Cairo was a polyglot city
of many communities. The bulk of its population, as

elsewhere
in Egypt, spoke
Egyptian Arabic. But there were also sizeable communities of Greeks, Italians,
French, Syrians, Armenians, English, Jews and Turks. The Turks had an
importance out of proportion to their numbers because until recently they had
supplied the ruling class and occupied most of the administrative and military
positions.
The language of administration, and certainly of
the law, tended, however to be French, although English was taking over.
French, too, was the language of upper-class Cairenes, reflecting their many
links with French culture and society. Well-to-do Cairenes sent their children
to French schools. Their wives looked naturally to Paris for their fashions.
They themselves not only spoke French but thought French.

To move with ease in Cairo society you
really needed a command of three languages: Arabic, French and English. The
polished young men about the British Agent managed this without difficulty.
Many of the other British administrations were fairly at home in Arabic at
least. Only the Army, lacking both Arabic and French, was completely isolated
linguistically; linguistically, and therefore socially.

Owen’s own Arabic was excellent, his French
fair only, though a girl in Alexandria the previous year had improved it
considerably.

He read over the Arabic papers, keeping an
eye open especially for anything that would support what Fakhri had said the
night before. He found nothing to suggest that Fakhri’s foreboding was
generally,
or even widely shared. However, that did not make
him discount Fakhri’s words altogether. The Egyptian might well be reflecting
faithfully the views of the part of upper-middle-class Cairene society with
which he was familiar. Such people might well see themselves as potential
targets for attack and he might well be registering accurately their
apprehension. So long as such views were restricted to them Owen did not mind.
What would concern him would be if they showed signs of spreading to other
people. Put ideas in people’s heads, Garvin might have said, and there’s always
a chance that they will act on them.

He read, therefore, Fakhri’s own paper with
particular care. It was an intellectual weekly with a fairly limited
circulation,
and in itself hardly likely to stir a man’s
adrenalin. However, it was well known. Other journalists and, indeed, other
editors might well read it; and if they read it they might take things from it.

Like
most Cairo editors, however, Fakhri knew exactly where to draw the line. In the
present number he had drawn it with a finesse that earned Owen’s professional
admiration. The connection between Nuri and the Denshawai Incident was made,
but circumspectly and in the most general of terms. Even the account of the
student demonstration, which occupied most of the front page, was handled in a
way to which it was difficult to take exception. Legal exception, that was.
Exception might well be taken on other grounds. The account itself was sharp to
the point of viciousness and the editorial, which commented on it, provocative
to the limits of admissibility. The writing did not, however, actually step
over the line which divided it from the inflammatory and defamatory.

Not so
al Liwa,
which, like Fakhri’s
paper, covered the demonstration at considerable length. Most of the length in
al
Liwa’s
case was due to passages of extended vituperation which were
saved—if they were saved—from being defamatory only by their generalness and
imprecision. Owen skipped through the bloodsucking imperialists bit, noted with
pleasure that the Sirdar was being blamed for the whole thing—incorrectly,
since the Army had nothing to do with it—and was amused to find that the
original target of the demonstration was quite lost sight of: the article ended
by inviting the Khedive to march with the demonstrators.

Owen wondered how much Ahmed had contributed
or whether, indeed, he had written it entirely.

However, that was not the only interesting
article the paper contained. Buried on an inside page was another article
which, Owen began to suspect, was the article which Fakhri had really wanted
him to see.

It was about Mustafa, Nuri’s would-be
assassin, and was called Mustafa’s Mistake. The mistake, according to the
article, lay in Mustafa’s thinking that his was a personal wrong which could be
remedied by private action. In fact, it was an instance of a general
problem, that
of landlord-fellahin relations, and the only
way to put that right was through political action. Baldly—and the article was
anything but bald —that meant joining the Nationalist Party. This, the paper
assured its readers, Mustafa had been on the brink of doing when, alas, he had
been carried away by the sight of his enemy.
Only the day
before he had spoken at a public meeting organized by the Nationalist Party in
his village.
He had been one of many willing to stand up and testify to
the wrongs the fellahin were suffering. Although he had not—yet— formally
joined the Nationalist Party, it would stand by him. His hand, the article
concluded with a flourish, may have held the gun but it was the landlords
themselves who had pulled the trigger.

Owen read it through again, thought for a
moment and then reached for the telephone.

“It’s
true,” said Mahmoud. “He was there. He did speak. I checked.” Mahmoud had been
in court all day. Like Owen, he could not give all his time to the Nuri affair,
important though it might be. A hearing had been scheduled for that day in
connection with another case, and as he had been responsible for drawing up the
procès-verbal
he had had to attend. Unusually, the Parquet’s analysis
had been challenged and Mahmoud had had to spend the morning defending it and
the afternoon—while, he pointed out to the clerk of the court, the judges were
having their siesta—revising his submission. He was in a jaundiced frame of
mind by the time he got back to his office, late in the afternoon, to find
Owen’s message waiting for him. They had arranged to meet that evening, which
gave him an opportunity to get his men to do a quick, independent check. First
reports had come back to him before he set out.

“Someone must have heard him speak,” said
Owen, “and thought they could use him.”

Mahmoud nodded. “It’s a possibility. I’ll
get my man to check if anyone talked to him afterwards.”

“He would have been angry. He might have
spoken with a lot of force.
Enough to attract attention.”

“I’ll get it checked.”

Owen, who had had a long, hot day too, had
proposed a walk along the river bank before finding a café. It was dark by this
time and the street-lamps were on. It ought to be getting cool. They turned
along a promenade beneath the palms.

“If someone heard him,” said Owen presently,
“they were there, too. Who else was at the meeting?”

“The whole village.
It was one of a
series of meetings the Nationalists have been holding in that area.”

“Not just the village,” said Owen.

“No? Who are you thinking of?”

“The Nationalists must have sent some
people.”

There was a little pause.

“Yes,” said
Mahmoud, rather distantly, “yes, they must have.” “We ought to find out who
they were.”

Then, as Mahmoud did not reply at all, Owen
looked round at him. Mahmoud’s face had gone wooden.

Something had upset him. Owen wondered if it
was anything he had done. Perhaps Mahmoud was fed up with Owen telling him his
business.

“Just a thought,” he said apologetically. “I
dare say you’ve got it all in hand.”

Mahmoud did not respond. Owen racked his
brains to see what he’d done wrong.

“Not my business, perhaps,” he said.
“Sorry!”

In the poor light of the street-lamps he
could not see whether Mahmoud acknowledged his apology. He began to grow a
little irritated. Mahmoud had been all right when they met. A little hot and
bothered after his day in court, perhaps. Why had he suddenly become all huffy?

A thought struck him. Surely Mahmoud did not
think he was trying to use him? That Owen wanted him to compile a list of
active Nationalists which the Mamur Zapt might then make use of for other
purposes?

“I hope you don’t think I’m trying to get
some names out of you,” he said angrily.

Mahmoud grimaced. It was clear that was
exactly what he did think.

Owen was furious. How could Mahmoud suppose
that! After the friendship that had sprung up between them! It was unjust and
unfair. He had taken Mahmoud to be a reasonable man. But this was so
unreasonable …

Just like a bloody Egyptian. He had met this
sort of thing before. You would be getting on all right with them one minute
and then the next minute something would happen and they would be quite
different. They would go all wooden, just as Mahmoud had done, and you wouldn’t
be able to get any sense out of them. He hadn’t thought Mahmoud was like that,
though. He had seemed all right. Why was he getting himself in a stew over
something as trivial as this? It wasn’t as if it was going to make any
difference. If Owen wanted the names he would bloody well get them. His own men
would get the lot within twenty-four hours. Why was Mahmoud being so absurdly
stuffy?