The Snake Catcher's Daughter (10 page)

The man with the bagpipes made a collection while the actors prepared for the next piece by putting on different garb. It mostly concerned the man on the chair and did not amount to much: a tarboosh on his head, a red jacket with yellow pipes, which might have belonged to a bandsman, and a rag round his neck which conceivably represented a tie.

The bagpiper gave a skirl on his pipes and the next skit began. It had a different theme and centred this time on the man in the chair. He began turning round on his chair and pretending to peep at something over his shoulder. The peeps became longer and his eyes seemed about to pop out of his head. Affecting shock, horror—and delight—he covered his eyes with his hand and turned hastily away; only, a second or two later, for his head to swivel round once more and his eyes to pop again.

After the process had been repeated several times, the figure began to show signs of mounting sexual excitement. When he spun round now, he rose halfway up the chair and made exaggerated pelvic thrusts. He pantomimed heat, mopping his brow, loosening his tie and undoing his jacket.

It was not enough. He called for drink. The bagpipes player proffered him a bowl and he drank from it greedily. Evidently, it was alcoholic liquor, for he began, very funnily, to suggest growing intoxication. The crowd was in stitches as he swayed about, nearly falling off the chair, getting into a tangle with his tie and missing his buttons. Finally, highly excited by whatever it was that was behind him, he tried to take off his trousers—Selim liked this bit especially—tripped himself up over the legs, collapsed in a heap on the chair and promptly fell asleep.

The other actor and the bagpipes player seized the chair and held him aloft; and it was only then that Owen realized whom the figure on the chair was intended to represent: McPhee.

The next morning, Owen sat in his office thinking about it. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t have bothered him. People were entitled to their bit of fun, after all, and the Cairo poor didn’t get much of it. A little ridicule was healthy; not so nice, perhaps, when it was you that was being ridiculed but basically something that anyone in office ought to be tough enough to put up with. He was pretty sure that the Mamur Zapt figured in the Mohabazin’s repertoire.

It meant, however, that his efforts to contain the episode through his control of the press had failed. Perhaps they were bound to. Owen had no illusions about the limits to his power in that respect. Things would always get out in the end. The most you could hope to do was to delay them.

That was what he had tried to do; that, and put a spoke in their wheel if there genuinely was somebody who was running a campaign against McPhee. Was that the case? Did the fact that the McPhee story was now being played on the streets mean there was somebody deliberately trying to put it about?

He wasn’t sure. There was a gap between the culture of the written word, written though it might be in popular newspapers, and the life of the streets. Many people, perhaps most people, in Cairo could not read. The people who were inflamed by what they read in the newspapers were mostly students. It was they who came out on demonstrations. The ordinary Cairene-in-the-street went along to see the fun but unless religion came into it was not much involved.

Religion did come into it here, or could come into it if they weren’t careful. But no one was going to get a fit of religion from watching one of the Mohabazin’s plays. So even if someone was putting it about, was it worth bothering with? A little ridicule didn’t hurt anyone and McPhee had bloody asked for it.

However, there was Garvin’s point. There were, all told, only a handful of British in Egypt. The country was ruled, in effect, by a very tiny group of men. It was in a way a bluff; and it worked only as long as the bluff wasn’t called. All right, there was an army offstage, but it was the fervent intention of every member of the Administration that that was exactly where it should stay. Bluff was the thing on which the Administration really depended; the kind of bluff that allowed three foreigners to run the Police Force and maintain order in a country the size of Egypt.

But one of the men was McPhee. And was McPhee the sort of man who could maintain the bluff convincingly? Not on present form. Garvin was right. Credibility was all.

Or was it? Hell, what did it matter if McPhee had become a bit of a joke? He was in danger of taking it all too seriously. It was this damned heat. You lost perspective. He decided he would go out for a coffee in an attempt to regain it.

He took the papers with him. As he went out, Nikos clapped another one on top of the pile.

“What’s this?”

“
Al-Lewa.
”

“I’ve got it already.”

“You haven’t got this one. This one is the one that actually came out this morning.”

“ ‘Actually came out’? You mean it was not the one I approved?”

“Take a look,” said Nikos. “I think you’ll find it interesting.”

The article took up most of the front page. It was an attack on the Cairo Police Force. It began with general charges of inefficiency and incompetence (plenty of examples, including, yes, the one about the whole Police Force out one day recently looking for, wait for it, a
donkey
!) and then moved swiftly to the suggestion that this was the fault not of the ordinary constable (fine, upstanding, brave, true, diligent, conscientious to a fault, decent, highly moral—Selim?) but of his superiors, in particular those who had been imposed on the Police Force from overseas.

It was not just that they were corrupt, though there was abundant evidence of that, some of it going back a long time (earrings), some of it more recent (jewels given to whores), nor just that they were personally immoral; it was that they had been imposed by powers overseas for a purpose. That purpose was the systematic repression of the population. It was hardly surprising, then, that the police paid so little attention to crime; they had other jobs to do.

So far, so fairly normal (for
Al-Lewa)
. The next bit was the new departure. This was the sharply personalized form of attacks. There were detailed references to the bizarre, eccentric behaviour of a senior member of the Police Force, culminating recently in open affront to Egyptian womanhood and natural religious feeling (was this part of a deliberate attempt to subvert what had for centuries been the country’s orthodox religion?). There were references to the concupiscence of another senior figure, who had for long maintained one whore and who had recently been seen visiting another.

The most detailed reference, however, was to a third (yes, yet another!) even more senior figure whose practices were so blatant that a case he had been involved in had recently been reopened by the Parquet.
Al-Lewa
would not prejudice possible judicial review based on the Parquet’s findings but it would venture to suggest that the world would be shocked by the naked political manipulation that would be revealed. At least injuries done to the original native Egyptian incumbents would be exposed.

And that, really, was the point. A perfectly acceptable system had been set aside at the behest of a foreign power. Perfectly capable, decent men had been superseded. What was required was a return to old virtues. Only then would the Police Force be able to lift its head again with pride. But that would require the wholesale and immediate departure of the present holders of office.

“There you are!” said McPhee triumphantly, back in the office. “A return to the old virtues. Exactly what I’ve been calling for.”

“And the old personnel,” Owen pointed out.

“Well—”

“That doesn’t mean you. It means Mustapha Mir and Philipides.”

“Old virtues!” said Garvin contemptuously. “Old vices, more like: bribery, corruption, personal favour, brutality, flogging—”

“It’s not
Al-Lewa’s
usual line,” said Owen thoughtfully. “They’re a radical paper. They don’t usually go for old virtues. They’re in favour of new ones.”

“Well, I can see that,” said Garvin. “That call for efficiency, for instance.”

“I don’t think their efficiency is quite the same as yours.”

“Efficiency is efficiency,” said Garvin. “And, talking of efficiency, how does it come about that they’re able to publish something like this? I thought you approved everything beforehand?”

“I didn’t this.”

“So how come?”

“They inserted it afterwards.”

“Well, you’ve got them, then, haven’t you?”

“Yes, I’ve got them. Only—”

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

“I’m surprised. They don’t usually carry things this far. They huff and puff and hint and push things just about as far as they think they can go, but they don’t usually cross the line. And they don’t openly disobey by inserting things afterwards. It’s not worth it, you see. They know I’ll ban the paper for a spell. They’ll lose readers, lose influence. People will read other papers. Their rivals.”

“Radical papers aren’t really interested in sales.”

“Don’t you kid yourself. They’re interested in sales, all right. They want to spread their gospel.”

“So why run the risk by doing this?”

“Why, indeed? It’s hardly worth it, is it? Not just for merely another attack on the British.”

“It’s not just another attack, though, is it? It’s a very specific attack; on us.”

“On all three of us,” said Owen. “And now I’m beginning to wonder. Maybe the McPhee business is not an isolated event, after all. And maybe, the girl in my bed, the diamond, the necklace, are part of it, too. They’re all bound up together; bound up with reopening the Philipides case as well.”

“They’re trying to get us out,” said Garvin, “all three of us. That’s the game. That’s what it is all about.”

“If that’s the game,” said Owen, “it’s a daft one. If we went, the Administration would just put three other Britishers in.”

“
Al-Lewa
would hail it as a triumph.”

“Maybe they would. But I don’t think they’re behind this. It isn’t their sort of thing.”

“Maybe it’s about time you found out who
is
behind it,” said Garvin sourly, “instead of spending all your time drinking coffee in cafés and generally sitting about like a lemon.”

Commotion in the Bab-el-Khalk. Cries in the courtyard, activity—unusual, this—in the orderly room. Owen, in his office, heard the agitated slap of slippers coming towards him. It was late in the afternoon and he was the only senior Effendi in the building.

“Effendi, there is a snake in the orderlies’ lavatory.”

“Has it bitten someone?”

“No, effendi, but Suleiman wants to use the lavatory.”

“Tell him to use another one. Oh, and send for the snake catcher.”

Doubt.

“Effendi—?”

“Yes?”

“Abdulla is in hospital.”

Abdulla was the usual snake catcher.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He has hurt his back.”

“Send for another.”

“We have, effendi. We sent for Ibrahim and he’s not there.”

“Surely there must be someone else? What about my snake catcher? He’s a good one.”

“Yes, effendi, but Farouz knows him and says he is visiting his son today.”

“Well, wait a minute, there’s one in the Gamaliya. Abu, his name is. Try him.”

Later.

Commotion again.

“What the hell is it this time?”

“Effendi, he’s sent a woman.”

“What woman? Oh, Jalila. She’s all right. What’s the matter?”

“She’s a woman, effendi.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“It wouldn’t be proper.”

“Does it matter? As long as she gets rid of the snake?”

“Oh, yes, effendi”—chorus—“it wouldn’t be right at all.”

“Why not?”

“What would a woman know about it? Catching snakes is a man’s job.”

“She can do it. I’ve seen her.”

“Yes, but—”

“She would be frightened, effendi.”

“No, she wouldn’t. I’ve seen her get into a tank of snakes.”

“She might get hurt.”

“No, she wouldn’t. I’ve seen her, I tell you. She knows all about it.”

“Effendi—”

He decided he’d better go down. It was indeed Jalila. She was looking defiant.

“I can do it,” she said. “I often help my father.”

“Helping is one thing, doing another.”

“Why can’t he come himself?” asked Owen.

“He’s—he’s not well.”

“He’s dead drunk,” said one of the orderlies.

“He can’t come. He’s sent me.”

“He doesn’t know anything about it.”

“Effendi,” appealed Jalila desperately, “we need the money.”

“The Rifa’i wouldn’t like it,” an orderly said.

Owen thought that was probably true.

“Is he really drunk?” he asked Jalila.

Jalila hung her head.

“Yes, effendi,” she said miserably. “He always is these days.”

“It’s shame,” said one of the orderlies. “Shame at having a daughter like this.”

Jalila looked at him savagely.

“Can’t he be woken up?”

“No, effendi,” said Jalila sadly. “When he’s like this he sleeps for a day and a night.”

“Perhaps we’d better leave it till tomorrow,” said Owen.

“Effendi, Suleiman—”

“You can’t have it both ways,” Owen snapped. “If you won’t let her do it, you’ll just have to manage without.”

“It would be all right if her father was here,” someone muttered. “No one minds her helping.”

Owen suddenly had an idea.

“Very well. Fetch him!”

“Fetch him?”

“Carry him if necessary.”

Abu was fetched. He arrived slung unceremoniously across a donkey and snoring loudly.

“Right. Put him down.”

Abu was dumped in the courtyard. Owen bent over him. The stench of alcohol rose up and hit him in the nose.

“He’s out for the count, all right,” he said.

“Effendi,” said Jalila in despair, “believe me, he won’t wake up—”

“Never mind that. You get on with it.”

“Get on with it?”

“He’s here, isn’t he? Right, well, you’re helping.”

Jalila looked at him doubtfully.

“Go on. Get on with it.”

Jalila picked up her bag and set out across the yard to the little, square mud-brick building which was the orderlies’ lavatory.

The orderlies watched interestedly.

“Rather her than me.”

“It’s fortunate it’s only a woman.”

Beside the lavatory was a heap of rags which got up as Jalila approached.

“Who’s that?” said Owen.

“Nassem. He cleans the lavatory.”

Jalila spoke to him and they went round to the back of the lavatory. A moment later Jalila reappeared following a trail which led to a hole in the large whitewashed wall which surrounded the courtyard. On the other side was a piece of wasteland. Owen, guiltily, was reminded of his garden.

Jalila put her bag down and stood for a moment looking around her carefully. A large crowd had gathered, most of them orderlies from within the building, in the hope of seeing something interesting, like the hunt going wrong.

Jalila’s eye lit on a small heap of crumbled masonry. She approached it carefully and then squatted down to think. Owen could see what the problem was. The snake was down the hole under the masonry and Jalila couldn’t get at its tail. Snake catchers liked to approach from the rear and seize the tail. That way it couldn’t twine round something and hold fast.

Jalila went back to her bag, put her hand in and pulled out a snake. She held it for a moment or two in her hand, stroking the back of its head gently with her finger. Then she put it down on the ground in front of the hole. It found a warm brick and settled itself comfortably in the sun.

Nothing happened for about a quarter of an hour. Then something stirred in the hole. A little dark head appeared. It hung there uncertainly for a moment or two and then slid out.

When the snake’s whole body was clear of the hole, Jalila pounced, pinning it to the ground with her stick. It tried to rear but couldn’t. The head lifted and spat.

Still pinning it with one hand, Jalila dangled a fold of her skirt in front of its face. The snake struck at it savagely, then withdrew its head and struck again. As it lifted its head back, Owen could see the yellow drops on the cloth.

Jalila teased it again, and then again. The snake went on striking until it was exhausted.

“The bag,” said Jalila, “bring me the bag.”

Owen pushed it towards her. She opened it with one hand and then, quick as a flash, dropped the stick, seized the snake with two hands, lifted it and dropped it in, closing the neck of the bag quickly. For a moment the bag thrashed about. Then it went still.

Unhurriedly, Jalila picked up the other snake, still drowsy about the brick, and dropped that in as well. Then she tied the neck of the bag.

“Well, that was rather disappointing,” said one of the orderlies.

“It all looked a bit easy to me,” said another.

“I don’t think the snake was really trying. Probably knew it was a woman.”

“Yes, you get more excitement with a man.”

“Ah, well, that’s because snake catching’s not really a job for a woman.”

“Lucky her father was here.”

“Back inside!” said Owen. “All of you. The fantasia is over for the day.”

He paid Jalila generously.

“What about your father?”

Jalila shrugged.

“He can lie there until he comes to,” she said. “He won’t know where he is but that’s no different from any other time.”

“You were very good,” said Owen. “It’s harder when you can’t see their tails.”

Jalila was pleased and went off beaming.

That evening, as he came out of the Bab-el-Khalk, she was waiting for him.

“I want to thank you,” she said. “They wouldn’t have accepted it if you hadn’t made them.”

“I had seen you with snakes,” he said. “Remember?”

She fell in beside him shyly.

“Yes,” she said. “That—that is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

In fact, for some time she didn’t say anything. As they passed a sherbet shop, Owen considered buying her a sherbet. It was, of course, a thing you did not do; but then, you didn’t walk down the street with stray young women, either, not unless they were very stray. Jalila, admittedly, was walking a step behind him, to keep things decent. The position was doubly respectable, since it was a little out to one side, where a suppliant might walk. A wife would walk directly behind. The darkness, however, was probably the greatest safeguard of Jalila’s reputation.

“You were kind to me,” she said suddenly, “so I will help you. You asked me once if I saw the men who had taken the Bimbashi. I did not, but—”

“Yes?”

“I smelt them.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the cistern. There was a smell.”

Owen tried to remember.

“There was a smell of snake?” he said.

“More.”

“Spices,” he said. “Palm oil.”

He had a very acute sense of smell, which was not always an advantage in Egypt. He tried to conjure back the smells in the cistern. The air had been trapped, he had smelt something distinctly. Snake, he could remember, anyone who had ever kept a snake, even a humble grass snake, knew how the smell clung to your hands, and there in the cistern the smell— sour, acid—had been very pronounced. But what else?

She held out her arm to him.

“Smell,” she said.

It brought back to him the smells in the cistern, pungent, spicy.

“Ointment,” she said. “You make it from snake fat. Snake fat is the base and then you add to it various spices and other oils. But the main thing is the venom.”

“It contains venom?”

“Venom of cobra. You also take it internally. There is a drink called
teryaq
, where the venom is mixed with the juice and rind of limes. You take it in small, very small quantities, but you take it every day.”

“It gives you protection?”

“So they say.”

“And your father has been giving it to you?”

“Yes. But he is not supposed to. It is for the Rifa’i only.”

“But, Jalila,” said Owen, thinking, “I do not understand. You say you smelt the men?”

“Yes.”

“And this was the smell?”

“Yes. I smelt it in the cistern. The air holds the smell. I knew at once that someone else had been there.”

“But, Jalila, you yourself—”

“I know. But this was different. You see—I should not tell you, it is a secret, it belongs to the Rifa’i—the Rifa’i take it every year. Both the drink and the ointment. They go away for a month—that is where your own snake catcher is, he is not visiting his son, that was just an excuse—they go away for a month, and they take the ointment and the drink every day for a week, and then they have to lie and see there are no ill effects. And they work on things of the spirit. Then they come back ready to do their work. And after they come back, for a week or two the smell is fresh, and—”

“And that was the smell you smelt?”

“Yes.”

“Fresh?”

She nodded.

“My own smell, it is not fresh, because my father, he does not do it properly. He does not know the exercises. He only knows how to prepare the ointment and the
teryaq
. I wear the ointment all the time, the drink I take three times a year.”

“That is too much.”

“I take it in very small doses. A Rifa’i takes a thimbleful. I just cover the bottom of the thimble.”

“And in the cistern it was—not your smell?”

“It was fresh.”

“Whoever it was had been treated recently?”

“Within the last two weeks.”

“And was a snake catcher?”

“One of the Rifa’i. Yes, effendi.”

“You needn’t worry about Demerdash,” Zeinab said. “At least, not about his marrying me. He thinks I’m a whore.”

“Whence has sprung this revelation?”

“He read it in the newspaper.”

“Al-Lewa?
”

Zeinab nodded.

“I’m sorry.”

“One whore I can cope with,” said Zeinab, “especially if it happens to be me. It’s the other one I’m worried about.”

“There isn’t another one.”

“What about the one in your bed?”

“That’s the same one, I think.”

“Only this time it was
her
bed?”

“Not even her
appartement
. She wanted to meet me.”

“She certainly believes in making her meetings interesting. I suppose you will tell me you went there in the cause of duty?”

“Of work, yes. She’s the wife of the man I told you about; that Greek, Philipides.”

“Isn’t one man enough for her?”

“She wanted to intercede for him.”

“You swallowed
that
?”

Owen hesitated.

“I’m not sure. She seemed very passionate.” This, unfortunately, was a singularly ill-chosen word and it was some time before Zeinab could be persuaded to calm down.

“It’s me they’re after,” he said eventually. “It’s just that you’re tied to me, for better or for worse. And, talking of for better or for worse—”

Zeinab always liked him asking her to marry him. It was reassuring; and although she remained in a state of chronic indecision about her answer, considering the matter was very agreeable and tended to put her into a softer mood.

“At least,” she said kindly, “the competition has now been reduced.”

“Demerdash, you mean?”

“Yes. If there ever was a suit, it has now been withdrawn. He has denounced me to my father.”

“What’s it got to do with him?”

“A lot, he thinks. He is concerned about the possible damage to my father’s reputation. In fact, he’s rather more concerned about that than he is about the damage to mine.”

“Your father’s reputation is a matter for your father, I would have thought.”

“Well, no. Not if he is to return to the political fold. Not if he is to be seen as a member of the ‘Government-in-Waiting’.”

“Government-in-Waiting?”

“That’s how Demerdash sees it, apparently. Things have reached such a pretty pass, he says, immorality and materialism everywhere, that it’s only a question of time before the Khedive dismisses his existing Ministers and looks around him for new ones who can regenerate the country. And when he looks, who will he see? A group of dedicated, experienced men, whose loyalty he can count on, men in whom the country will have confidence, men of standing, Pashas—”

“Pashas?”

“Yes. None of this nonsense about democracy. That’s where it all went wrong, when politicians started thinking of themselves as professionals and everyone else started thinking of themselves as politicians. It opened the gates of self-interest. Statesmen, though, are not politicians. They are above all that. Their concern is only for their country—”