the Tree into it. It’s a Christian site, you see, of particular interest to Copts, but not just Copts, Catholics too. The balsam—’
‘What the hell’s the Tree got to do with it?’
‘Well, he says it’s not just an accident that the man was killed at that particular spot. It’s within the zone of influence of the Tree, and—’
‘So, it’s become an issue between Muslims and Christians?’ said Paul.
‘That’s right. As well.’
Paul took another drink. Then he put down his glass.
‘Political enough for you yet?’ he said maliciously.
‘First, I’m going to arrest the bloody Tree,’ said Owen.
When Owen got out of the train, the ordinary steam-train this time, at Matariya Station, he could see ahead of him the broad white track which led to Heliopolis. Away on the skyline were half-finished houses and men busy on a large construction of some sort: the new hotel, he supposed.
Nearer at hand, over to his right, a pair of humped oxen, blindfolded, were working a sagiya, or water-wheel. Its groan followed him as he walked.
Far to his left, above the mud parapet which hemmed in the waters of the Nile, he could see the tall sails of gyassas, like the wings of huge brown birds, gliding along the river. Closer to was the great white gash of the advancing end of the new railway. It was somewhere over there that he must have been two days before.
The track led through a vast field of young green wheat, away in the middle of which an ancient obelisk thrust upwards at the sky.
McPhee, he told himself, would have loved it: both the biblical landscape and the reminder of something even older, the original Heliopolis, City of the Sun, where Plato and Pythagoras had walked and talked, buried now, perhaps even beneath this very field of wheat.
McPhee was not the ordinary sort of policeman. His interests were in the Old Egypt rather than in the New; in the Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies and Moses rather than in the Egypt of the Khedive and the occupying British and the foreign developers.
Owen’s mind, however, was gripped more by the New Egypt than by the Old. For he was the Mamur Zapt, Head of Cairo’s Secret Police, responsible for political order in the city, and the chief threat to that order came from the new forces that were emerging in the country, to do with nationalism, ethnic and religious tension, and the growing impatience with the traditional rule of the Pashas.
If it were not for the fact that the Old Egypt had a habit of rising up every so often and giving the New an almighty kick in the teeth!
The Tree was in a bad way. It lay prone on the ground and although it was green at the top it was very brown underneath. Its bark was gnarled and twisted and much gashed where the irreverent, or, possibly, the reverent, had carved their names.
‘That’s why I had to put a railing round it,’ explained the man who claimed to be its owner, a Copt named Daniel.
There was a wooden palisade all round the Tree. It, too, was covered with names.
‘It costs ten piastres to put your name on,’ said the Copt.
‘Ten piastres!’ said Owen, aghast.
‘That includes the hire of a knife,’ said the Copt defensively, brandishing a large blunt-edged instrument.
‘But ten piastres!’
‘Think, Effendi!’ said the Copt persuasively. ‘Your name bound to a holy relic for perpetuity! That will surely count for something on the Day of Judgement!’
‘You don’t think overcharging may also count for something on the Day of Judgement?’
‘The Tree has many virtues, Effendi,’ said the Copt, smiling.
‘Evidently. But does it not, from what I hear, have vices, too?’
‘That is a calumny put about by the Muslims.’
‘But is there not some truth in it? For I have heard a man lies dead because of the Tree.’
‘That is a story got up by Sheikh Isa. For his own ends.’
‘Ah?’
‘He wishes to drive me out. So that he can take over custodianship of the Tree himself.’
‘But why would he want to do that? If the Tree lacks virtue? And isn’t the Tree a Christian relic rather than a Muslim one?’
‘It is a Muslim one too. As for the virtue, that would return if the Tree were in proper hands. Muslim ones. They say.’
‘And what do you say?’
‘That Sheikh Isa is a greedy old bugger who just wants to get his hands on the cash!’ said the Copt wrathfully.
‘The Tree is cursed,’ said Sheikh Isa. ‘Anyone can see that. Otherwise, why would it be lying on its side?’
‘Old age?’
Sheikh Isa brushed this aside.
‘The question is: why has it been cursed? And the answer is obvious. The Tree fell down a year ago. At exactly the time,’ said Isa with emphasis, ‘that they began to build this new city.’
‘So?’
‘Well, it’s plain, isn’t it? God doesn’t want them to build the city. It’s an abomination to him. So he cursed the Tree to show us his anger.’
‘Why does he abominate the city?’
‘I don’t presume to know God’s mind, but I can make a guess. It’s to be a City of Pleasure. That’s what they say, don’t they? Now God is not against pleasure, but I think his idea of pleasure may well be different from that of the Pashas. Do you think he wants to see such a holy place turned into a Sodom and Gomorrah?’
‘Holy place?’
‘Not here,’ said Sheikh Isa impatiently. ‘The Birket-el-Hadj.’
‘Ah, of course!’
The Birket-el-Hadj was the traditional rendezvous for the Mecca caravan. It was about three miles north of Matariya.
‘Do you think God wants a place like that just where they should be beginning to put their thoughts in order for the Holy Journey?’
‘Perhaps not. But, of course, fewer and fewer people are travelling that way now. They prefer to go by train—’
‘Train?’ roared Sheikh Isa, almost foaming at the mouth. ‘Go to Mecca by train?’
‘Just to the coast—’
‘Train?’ shouted Sheikh Isa. ‘They heap abomination upon abomination! Shall we stand idly by when God’s will is set at naught? Has he not sent us a sign that all can read? Does not the Fall of the Tree spell the Fall of the City—?’
‘Why don’t you just lock him up?’ said the Belgian uneasily.
‘On what grounds?’
‘Causing trouble.’
‘That’s not an offence.’
‘It bloody is in my eyes. Anyway, doesn’t the Mamur Zapt have special powers?’
‘He does. But it’s wisest if he uses them sparingly.’
‘I reckon it would be pretty wise to nip this thing in the bud. Before it gets out of hand.’
‘You don’t lock up religious leaders just like that.’