‘I am afraid you will need it,’ said the journalist, ‘with all there is ranged against you.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘You can, of course, count on our support. But in a case like this the Mamur Zapt’s support, if indeed, you have it, will count far more.’
‘Well, thank you,’ said Mahmoud.
For Mahmoud, as for most Cairenes, Africa began one mile south of Cairo. In the wilderness that was the provinces, what hope was there for observance of proper procedure? For efficiency and competence of any sort? For rationality itself?
‘Be fair!’ remonstrated Owen. ‘He’s only a Mudir. And when he’s up against someone like Prince Fuad —’
‘That is true. It is wrong for me to blame the ones lower down when it is those at the top who are at fault. What you said is true. It is not the Mudir who is to blame, it is those who have made him what he is!’
He brought his fist crashing down on the table. A waiter, misunderstanding, hurried to replenish their coffee pot.
‘It is not the man who is at fault, it is the system. The Pashas, with their interest in keeping people ignorant, the Khedive, the British—’
‘Quite right!’ said the waiter warmly.
‘What?’
Caught off balance, Mahmoud stared up at him.
‘It’s what I always say myself.’
It was the waiter that Owen knew, the one he had had his long conversation with on the occasion of his previous visit to the hotel, that morning when the financiers had been talking under the trees and he himself had been sitting, then as now, up here on the terrace.
‘It’s the rich man that gets syrup on his figs, the poor man has to do without.’
He poured them some coffee.
‘Take this coffee, for instance. Do you think I get coffee like this? Well, I do, as a matter of fact, because I work in the hotel now and we help ourselves. But when I’m at home, do you think I drink like this? No, it’s bitter black tea for me, and that’s the way it is with the world. The rich get what’s going and the poor are left to fend for themselves.’
‘Yes, well—’
The waiter dropped on to his heels, part of the conversation now.
‘Take that foreign effendi, the one who was shot. Did the Mudir want to know? Not a bit of it. In fact, the less he knew about it, the better. But when my sister’s son was caught stealing grapes, the Mudir was on to him in a flash. “It’s you for the caracol,” he said. Caracol! What did he want to put him in the caracol for, for a thing like that? A clip over the ear would have done. Or a touch of the stick, like the old Mudir used to do. “You’re making him a criminal,” I said. “I’m bloody stopping him from becoming one,” the Mudir says. Well, that’s all very well, but what about those rich men who were here the other day? They were stealing grapes if anyone was. But was anybody doing anything about them? Well, maybe someone was, for one of them got shot, didn’t he? Though he was the wrong man and they should have shot someone else—’
‘Just a minute,’ interrupted Owen: ‘Why? Why was he the wrong man?’
‘Well, he was all right, wasn’t he? A bit lacking in the brain-pan, perhaps, the way he talked sometimes and the way he poked around in places, but harmless. You could see he meant well. When he went into shops or the bazaar he used to talk to people—’
‘Shops?’ said Owen. ‘Bazaar? Where was this?’
‘Medinet. He used to go there regularly. There was an old woman he used to stay with. As batty as he was. Foreign, of course, like him. Well, you can’t get away from them, they’re everywhere in Egypt. But—’
‘He’d been here before?’
‘Not here. Medinet. And over at Lahoun. He was always over there at the Labyrinth. Wouldn’t have been surprised if a crocodile had had him one of these days, if half what they say is true.’
‘What do they say?’
‘They say they haven’t gone, you know.’
‘They—?’
‘The crocodiles. They say they’re still there somewhere. Tucked away underground in that Labyrinth. And they’ll have you as soon as look at you if you don’t watch out. People wandering around on their own. Like him. Tempting fate. Though fate’s a funny thing, isn’t it? It wasn’t the crocodiles that got him in the end. Although what happened to the body? They say that daft Mudir gave it away. You can never be sure about these things. Maybe the crocodiles did get him after all. A pity, though, it was him and not one of the others. Everybody knew him and—’
‘Everybody knew him?’ said Mahmoud later, as they climbed up into the carriage that was taking them back to the train.
Medinet spread along both banks of the Bahr-el-Yussuf. If it was a canal, as some argued, it was an unusual one, for the water rushed along it as swiftly as in a river. The current was so powerful that the water-wheels which fed the town were worked directly by it. The houses, too, were interesting, many of them as grand as Cairo Mameluke houses, with stuccoed fronts and graceful balconies trailing roses and figs and vines.
The house they were looking for was one of these, fronting, or possibly backing, on to the Bahr-el-Yussuf itself. While the porter went off to find out if the Sitt would see them, they waited in a mandar’ah, or reception room, which had a sunken, tessellated floor and a dais at one end with large worn cushions on which they could sit.
They were taken, though, to the takhtabosh, which was a kind of recess off the small central courtyard, with an open front and a single column supporting a central arch. There was an open gateway on to the river and the takhtabosh was situated so that it would catch something of the river breeze.
The Sitt was an old frail lady, who received them with the manner of a grande dame of the previous century, an impression deepened by the fact that she addressed them in French. It was not the French of France, however, nor even the French of Egypt.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I come from Russia. We came here many years ago when my husband’ – the voice faltered a little – ‘had to leave Russia. It was after Alexander came to the throne. My husband’s family was not popular with the Romanovs. It never had been. One of his forebears took part in the Dekembrist insurrection, a fact of which’ – she lifted her head and looked them straight in the eyes – ‘I am very proud. Anyway, he had to leave Russia. He set up a business in Alexandria, importing and exporting, and we lived there until he retired. He had always loved this part of Egypt, the water, the birds, the roses, and so we bought this house. And I have lived here ever since.’
‘You kept in touch, however, with some Russian friends, Tvardovsky—’
‘Ah, yes,’ she said, ‘poor Tvardovsky! He always came to see me when he was in Alexandria on business. He made a point of it. He said our house was full of beautiful things. Come,’ she said, ‘I will show you them.’
She stood up, with difficulty, and, supporting herself on a stick, led them through the house: into the mak’ad, the high central hall, with its decorated ceiling and its kamarija windows, consisting of tiny pieces of coloured glass set in panels of pierced plaster taking the shapes of arabesques or flowers, or even a phoenix, which threw a brilliantly coloured reflection on the ground; up into the old harem, with its box-like meshrebiya windows; down into the ka’ah, with its inlaid cupboards and irregular recesses for holding china.
They did hold china: lots of it. Everywhere there were beautiful bowls and vases, huge, richly decorated plates, some from the time of the Mameluke Sultans, others even older. From classical Greece, perhaps?
‘Oh, no! Here. The Fayoum. Not Greek Greek but Egyptian Greek. The Fayoum is a treasure trove of such things and these are some