I know of her.
So, said Mahmoud, putting down his coffee and looking at Owen, the issue of principle is very close.
Which way Mahmoud would go on the issue when the moment of decision came, Owen did not know. No one could rise as far and as fast in the Parquet as Mahmoud had done without being worldly wise. Yet there was at the same time an odd streak of naivete in Mahmoud which took the form of an obstinacy about principle. He remained, thought Owen, as he walked down to the river the next morning, an idealist at heart.
He was on his way to see how preparations for the Cut were getting on. As he neared the point where the Khalig Canal came out into the river and where the Cut would be made, there were increasing signs of the coming festivities. Banners had appeared on some of the houses and brightly-coloured strings of bunting hung across the streets.
He had arranged to meet McPhee and when he turned a corner he saw him ahead of him. Along with a group of small boys and half the neighbourhood he was watching the public crier crying the height of the river.
Fifteen digits today and still rising! the crier intoned sonorously.
A hand was pushed through the lattice-work of one of the harem windows above and some coins thrown down. The crier scooped them up swiftly before the small boys got to them and bowed to the window.
Blessed be the mistress of this house! he called.
Digits? asked Owen.
On the Nilometer, said McPhee.
It stood at the end of Roda Island, just opposite them.
Its very important, you know, said McPhee. In the old days it used to relate to tax. There was a law which said that you couldnt levy land-tax until the river had reached a height of sixteen cubits. Very sensible, really, because peoples capacity to pay depended on the irrigation of their land. Of course, the Government used to fake it.
The dam, a simple earth one, ran across the canal just at the point of its entrance into the river opposite Roda Island. Its top was now only some six feet above the level of the water but its builders had been in this business for a thousand years and knew what they were doing.
Some way in front of the dam, in the dry bed of the canal, a tall cone of earth had been constructed. Its top had been sown with millet.
Obvious fertility associations, said McPhee.
When the Cut was made, and the dam breached, the water would pour through and demolish the cone, to the great satisfaction of onlookers. In the past, tradition had it, a young virgin had been sacrificed simultaneously, no doubt to their even greater satisfaction.
Although there is possibly some confusion here, said McPhee. You see, the cone is also called The Bride-the Nile, as it were, impregnates it-and popular imagination may have distorted that into a real woman.
Popular imagination was still alive and kicking in Cairo and one of the distortions it had threatened was the absorption of Mahmouds dead young woman into the traditional story. That had been stopped, fortunately, by the release of the autopsy findings. There was little purchase for the popular imagination in a woman who had died in so apparently ordinary a way.
McPhee, however, was reluctant to let the connection go. You dont think, he said wistfully, that the woman who was found-
No, said Owen firmly, I dont.
He made the mistake, however, of telling Zeinab about it when they met for lunch at her fathers house later that morning. It was a mistake firstly because female circumcision was exactly the kind of topic likely to intrigue Nuri Pasha.
It is a barbaric practice, he said, and I am totally opposed to it. They say it improves the womans beauty, that unless you do it, the labia minora dangles unbecomingly, but I have never been able to see that myself. I have always felt that the more a woman is developed in that area, the better. And then the cutting pares away the most interesting parts. It diminishes the womans capacity for pleasure. I am totally against that, said Nuri, shaking his head. It diminishes mine.
He looked tenderly at the latest painting he had acquired: a Renoir nude. Nuri was fond of things French; especially women.
Its a lower class practice, of course. But, do you know, my dear, I was talking to Shukri Pasha this week-hes just taken another wife, shes only fourteen, but a beauty, I gather-and he told me that when Khadiya came to him-she is his second wife-or is it his third? anyway, when she came to him he was astonished to find that she had been circumcised. My dear Shukri, I said, thats what you get if you marry out of your class. Anyway-
He continued happily for some time.
Anyway, my dear, he said suddenly to Zeinab, thats why I didnt have you circumcised.
Im glad you didnt, said Zeinab. I wouldnt have wanted to miss out on anything.
Zeinab was the second reason why it was a mistake to raise the subject. She wasnt very interested in circumcision but she was interested in Labiba Latifa. Modern in spirit, although not quite in the way that Mahmoud was, Nuri had raised his daughter to be independent. That was a very difficult position for women to be in in Egypt at that time and Zeinab was eager to hear about others in the same position.
Do you think she would like some help? she asked suddenly.
No, said Owen.
It was Greek day in the Gardens. There was a festival of some sort and they were doing their national dances. The women were in traditional costumes, in which a fine lawn chemisette seemed to play a great part, and danced in a group, with much spirited skipping and rhythmic stamping of feet. The men were dressed more drably, in shiny black clothes and black wideawake hats. They took off their coats and waistcoats to dance, but were less stripped down than the Levantines, some of whom came in singlets, as for the gymnasium. Their women, too, appeared to be feeling the heat, for they had removed their dresses and were sitting in their petticoats, retaining, however, the white wreaths round their heads.
A pretty young woman danced across to Owen.
Hes in the shade, she said, with the beer.
She took Owen in among the bamboos to where a rug had been spread for a picnic. There was a hamper but no beer. Rosa, who knew her husbands habits, led Owen further into the shade. Georgiades was standing beside a gadwal talking to the gardener. He was embracing an armful of bottles.
I was asking him if he could let some water into the gadwal, he explained.
And I was telling him I couldnt, said the gardener. This isnt the right day.
I was just wondering if you could make an exception, said Georgiades, fishing in his pocket.
The gardener looked at the coins.
No, he said. I couldnt. Look, theres a stream just over there. Why dont you put the bottles in that?
Its too far.
For Gods sake, said Rosa. Why dont you dance, like the other men?
Yes, said Owen, eyeing the Greeks bulk. Why dont you dance, like the other men?
Besides, said Georgiades, ignoring all these remarks, there are always thieves about in a place like this. Ill bet youve had some trouble-
Well, said the gardener, as a matter of fact-
Owen walked back with Rosa to the picnic place.
I suppose you wouldnt like to dance?
Im not familiar with the Greek dances, Owen excused himself.
Perhaps there wouldnt be much point, Rosa conceded. She had always had a soft spot for Owen, especially since that business of the ransom. Indeed, if ever Zeinab should fall by the wayside, and if, by any unfortunate chance her husband, too, should be struck down, then-She brushed aside the possibility that Owen might have his own views. Rosa believed that whoever her mate was, she and he would be of one mind; hers.
She offered him some tsatsiki. While he was eating it, she squatted down beside him and asked about the regulator.
You know, she said, looking in her husbands direction, hes not really the man for this. Water is not a liquid hes had much to do with. And he knows nothing, absolutely nothing, about gardens. Im the only flower hes heard of.
I know, said Owen, but hes a wonderful man at getting people to talk to him.
Georgiades and the gardener were coming back through the bushes.
Yes, well, I could put them in the stream, I suppose, Georgiades was conceding, but Im not happy about it. Not with all these thieves about. Now if there was a ghaffir around-
Him? said the gardener. Hed be the first to take them!
At the regulator all was calm. The water winked placidly in the sun. Some papyrus heads which had crept through the main barrage circled slowly up to the breach and then spun away again. The workmen were sitting up on the bank. Macrae and Ferguson stood on top of the regulator looking down into the breach and conferring.
Weve stopped it up, said Macrae. Now weve got to find a way of letting the water through again.
But controlled, said Ferguson.
Were thinking of using the undamaged gate. Its the other one thats the problem.
Weve stopped it up, said Macrae. Now weve got to find a way of letting the water through again.
But controlled, said Ferguson.
Were thinking of using the undamaged gate. Its the other one thats the problem.
Aye, said Ferguson.
They took Owen back to their little office and produced coffee. Then Macrae sat back.
Weve talked to the men, he said.
Talked to the men?
Aye. About the dynamite. Weve told them it wont do. Now I dont mind the odd spot of pilfering. But dynamite is different.
Yes, but-
Ysee, that hole in the shed was clean cut. It was done with proper tools. Now we reckon that whoever did it must have brought his tools with him. And theres a chance that the other men might have seen them. Of course, theres also a chance that he brought them some other time and kept them hidden. But they keep close together and theres a possibility that one of the others may have seen something. So we put it to them.
Put it to them?
Aye. We said now was the time to speak up. This wasnt a private thing, this was a matter for everyone. Everyone suffered from a thing like this and if it happened again they would suffer more, their own villages, their own people.
And what did they say?
They didnt say anything. But they will.
Theyve got to talk it over first, you see, Ferguson explained.
And you think it will work?
Aye, said Macrae.