Chapter 4
In the Gardens the dancing was continuing furiously. The women had formed into a long line, their hands on the hips of the one in front of them, and were snaking about all over the place. The men had dropped back into a stationary row and were clapping the rhythm. The women danced up to them teasingly and then withdrew. Owen could see Rosa about half way down the line, plainly enjoying herself.
The dancers families had turned out in support. He recognized Rosas parents and formidable grandmother surrounded by lots of little children, themselves dressed for dancing, who must be cousins. Rosa belonged to a large extended family and to marry her was to marry the whole Greek community. Georgiades, a communal backslider, had had little choice in the matter. The marriage had been arranged; by Rosa.
Georgiades himself was nowhere to be seen. Owen began to walk round the group to greet Rosas family but then spotted him, beyond the dancers, among the bougainvillea, sitting on the edge of a gadwal talking to the ghaffir.
Lizard men! he was saying in appalled tones as Owen came up. I wouldnt meddle with them if I were you!
Dont worry! said the ghaffir fervently. I wont!
Owen stepped back behind a bush.
Mind you, said Georgiades, it could already be too late.
Too late!
Yes. I mean, you saw him, didnt you?
No! All I saw was his trail. I mean, I knew at once that it was a lizard man, you can tell by the marks, its their tail. But thats not the same thing. I didnt actually see him, not him himself-
Well, then, you were a lucky man!
I know, I know!
I mean, you could so easily have seen him. It must have taken him some time to make that hole-
Ah, no, it wasnt like that. I mean, they dont work like that. Not lizard men.
They dont?
No. They dont do it themselves, they get men to do it for them. Thats why you dont see them. And thats the way it was here. The wood wasnt gnawed, was it? It was cut. If a lizard man had done it himself, it would have been gnawed. You dont see lizard men with tools, do you?
Well, no-
No. He got someone to do it for him. Someone who had the tools. Then he came along afterwards, wriggled through the hole, took what he wanted and then was on his way.
Well. I still think you were lucky. Because you could so easily have seen him at that point, couldnt you?
Yes, but I try to take care. I mean, thats always the risk in a job like mine. Youve got to be careful you dont see too much. If you just go blundering around, you can easily walk into something, and then, bang! The next minute youre in trouble.
So what do you do?
I creep. Then if you come across something, if you see something, or, more likely, hear something, like that night-
So you did see him?
No, no. like I said, you dont see them. They get someone to do it for them.
Ah, so that was the one you saw?
I didnt see anyone. But- the ghaffir lowered his voice-I knew hed been there.
Well, the hole, of course-
No, no, not that.
How, then?
The ghaffir laid his finger along his nose.
Fair is fair, and if you take mine, I take yours. Thats fair all round, isnt it?
Depends what it is, said Georgiades.
But the ghaffir seemed to think hed said enough. He picked up his gun and prepared to move away.
All the same, though, he said, with a slightly worried expression on his face, its best not to meddle with the Lizard Man.
Mahmoud seemed oddly uneasy Normally, although he was on the best of terms with Owen personally, he liked to keep his distance from him over legal matters. Constitutionally there was no place for the Mamur Zapt in the legal scheme of things, and Mahmoud was a stickler for constitutionality. Over this business of the Maiden, however, he seemed anxious to consult him at every turn. Owen knew that it was not because he had any doubts over the right course to pursue in terms of law. It must be something else; and Owen thought he knew what that was.
Mahmoud was not at home with this kind of case. It touched on things he knew very little about: women, for example. By this time most Egyptian men of his age would have married. Mahmouds father, himself a busy lawyer, had died young, however, and before he had had time to arrange that. Mahmoud had had to set about supporting his family and had immersed himself first in his studies and then in his career to the exclusion of all else. His mother broached the issue from time to time, indeed, was doing so with increasing frequency, but Mahmoud, determinedly modern, made it clear that he himself would see to the matter when the time came.
The time, however, had not so far come; and, since he had no sisters, and was, like many educated young Egyptians, distinctly prudish on sexual matters, the consequence was that he had had very little to do with women and knew very little about them. Given the way in which women were kept from any contact with men outside their own family, Owen doubted whether Mahmoud had ever spoken to a young woman of his own social standing.
The result was, thought Owen, that Mahmoud probably knew as much about female circumcision as he, Owen, did about water engineering.
And it was from this weak basis that Mahmoud was being called on to make a major, probably public, stand. Had the law been clear, Mahmoud would not have hesitated a moment. But the law, wisely, in Owens view, had left the matter vague. This was, as things stood, as much an issue of morality and social policy as it was of law.
Again, had things been clear, Mahmoud might well not have hesitated. He was, as Labiba Latifa had found out, a man of strong moral principle and firm social convictions. But he did like things to be clear, he needed them to be clear. And were they clear here? Mahmoud simply did not know enough about the subject to know whether they were or not.
And so he was unusually hesitant, unusually uncertain.
I was wondering, he said diffidently, if you would like to come?
By all means.
They set out down the Mouski, on foot, because at this time of the evening the street was so full of people that even if you took an arabeah from one of the hotels, whose drivers were the most aggressive in Cairo, it wouldnt have been able to force its way along at more than walking pace. Up near the Ataba the shops were quite good but the nearer one got to the bazaars, the cheaper and shoddier they became and the street was virtually taken over by stalls.
They forced their way through the crowds around the nougat sellers and Arab sugar sellers and-Owen could never quite understand this-spectacles sellers and made their way into the Khan-el-Khalil, the Turkish Bazaar. It was the bazaar most popular with tourists, who were there in throngs, studying the saucers of glittering gems, the lumps of turquoise, the flashing and densely-chased silver- and brass-ware and the gaudy keepsakes of Crusaders and Pharaohs. The shopkeepers were all in black frock-coats and tarbooshes. It was Oriental, all right. But not Egyptian.
Behind the bazaar was the real Egyptian: small, poor houses with the doors open and people sitting in them, catching the air; small, poor, dimly-lit shops with black-clad women fingering the last remaining-and reduced-tomatoes; stalls again, this time with sticks of sugar cane, small cucumbers and pickles.
It was here that Um Fattouha, Mother Fattouha, lived. She was one of the midwives in Labiba Latifas circle of contacts and the one, Labiba thought, most likely to be of use to Mahmoud.
Mahmoud stopped at the open door and called softly in. A large, fat lady, heavily veiled and dressed in black, came to the door. She led them into an inner room. It was very dark, lit by a single spluttering oil lamp, and furnished only with a single worn divan and a floor cushion on which a young man in the dark suit of an office worker was sitting, nervously playing with his tarboosh.
He sprang up when they entered.
Suleiman Hannam, he introduced himself. Labiba Latifa told me to come. II knew Leila.
The woman indicated that they should sit on the divan and then disappeared. The young man returned to the cushion at their feet.
How did you know Leila? asked Mahmoud.
The young man swallowed.
II had known her before, he said, when we were children. Back at our village. Then her family moved away. I had forgotten about them but then one day I saw her father, in the street. I was wondering whether to go up and speak to him when I saw her. She was bringing him his lunch. I guessed at once that it was her. But she was so different! So-so-
So?
Womanly. I just stood there. All I wanted to do was look at her. She went away, but I guessed that she did it every day, so the next day I found out where he would be and I-well, I went there, and waited for her. And then I followed her home.
Did you speak to her?
No. Not at first. I just wanted to see and I followed her every day. And then one day she-she realized. At first it frightened her and just made her hurry all the more. But then-then she saw how it was. And then one day-one day she smiled at me- Owen sighed inwardly.
Mahmoud, however, frowned. This was loose behaviour. Smiled? he said. Was she not in her veil?
Oh yes. But II knew somehow.
Mahmoud looked stern.
And then?
Well, I-one day I approached her. Not that day. Much later. II went up to her. And spoke.
You spoke to her without asking her fathers permission?
He wouldnt have given it me. Our families-our families had quarrelled. Years before. In the village.
You shouldnt have spoken to her.
I meant no harm! II spoke to her honourably.
How could you speak to her honourably? Without her father knowing, and your father knowing?
I was going to. I wanted to. Only-only Leila said I should wait. And I thought, perhaps that was a good idea, perhaps I would be able to talk my father round-
Wouldnt that have been better?
It would have been difficult. The daughter of a water-carrier! He would have been very angry.
All the same-
I would have tried. We agreed that was best. Only-
Only what?
One day she told me her father was going to marry her to Omar Fayoum.
Well-
But hes old! And foul! And not really very rich. All he does is run a water-cart. Well, that may look good to a water-carrier but its nothing really. I thought I would go to him and say, look, you can do better than that. I have a job at the Water Board, and if you will only wait-But Leila said no, the fates were against us, and I said, let us defy fate-