The Girl in the Nile (11 page)

“It might pop up at an awkward moment,” he said, which was hardly any better.

“We’ll have to risk that,” said Garvin briskly.

Owen was deliberating whether this was the moment. Garvin seemed fairly amenable this morning. He might never have a better chance.

“I wonder if we’re handling this in the right way,” he said cautiously.

He didn’t need to work through Garvin. Although Garvin was shown as his formal superior in terms of the office organization chart, that was to some extent a convenient fiction and the Mamur Zapt had his own lines of communication to the powers that were.

Garvin, however, played bridge with the Consul-General and was a member of his social circle. The habit of the British overseas was to replicate the governing patterns of the Establishment in London, with its loose formal structure and very tight informal one, articulated through a wide variety of social occasions, and Egypt was no exception.

Owen was, he was aware, a hired man and not a member of the charmed social circle and if he wanted to get things done he had to do it indirectly by tweaking the inner social system.

“What do you mean?” said Garvin, looking at him sharply.

“Letting Narouz block it. It’s bound to get out and then it will look as if we’re helping the Khedive to cover up. Is that a good idea?”

“He’s the Government, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but this kind of thing gives the Government a bad name. Do we want to be all that closely identified with the Government over a thing like this?”

“A thing like
what
?”

“Corruption. Possible murder.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying we should let Mahmoud go on investigating this case. Seriously, I mean.”

Garvin looked at him searchingly, then looked away.

“There are one or two things on at the moment,” he said.

“I know. The Agreement.”

“Well, then.”

“I don’t see that the two have to go together.”

“They go together,” said Garvin, “because the only legal basis we have for being in Egypt is that we’re here by the Khedive’s invitation. It’s a personal thing, there’s no formal treaty or anything like that. It’s just his invitation. And he’s prepared to renew it, provided we’re prepared to look after him and see he stays in power.”

“Would a thing like this stop him from staying in power?”

“It might.”

“We don’t have to do
everything
he wants,” said Owen, exasperated.

“Certainly not. But we do have to do everything he wants for the next month or so.”

“I was hoping,” said Owen, “that you might be able to have a word—”

“I’m afraid not,” said Garvin.

“This is unreasonable,” said Owen.

“On the contrary,” said Zeinab. “You don’t love me; so why should we make love?”

“I do love you.”

“You don’t listen to me,” said Zeinab, “let alone love me.”

“I am doing what I can. I’ve been trying to persuade them—”

“Persuade them?” said Zeinab incredulously. “Do you have to persuade people to do what is obviously right?”

“They don’t see it like that. They—”

“Why do you always have to take their point of view?”

“I am not taking their point of view. I am working within it.”

“I do not follow these sophistries,” said Zeinab.

“If I do it too directly they won’t listen to me.”

“They don’t listen to you. You don’t listen to me. It is time,” said Zeinab, “that the whole lot of you started listening.”

“Listen—”

“
I
,” said Zeinab, “always listen.”

“No, you don’t. Try and hear what I am saying. I
am
doing something about it, I
am
trying to get them to change their mind. I am spending about all my time on the bloody thing—”

“Leila,” said Zeinab. “Is that what you mean?”

“The case. And it’s not even my case. I am not really on it. It’s not really anything to do with me.”

“An injustice occurs,” said Zeinab, “and it’s not really anything to do with you?”

“I’m just trying to do a job. I am not trying to put the whole world right. That’s something God can do.”

“The old Mamur Zapt,” said Zeinab, “would have listened.”

“The old Mamur Zapt was a crook.”

“And had a weakness for women. There are,” said Zeinab, “many similarities between you. Nevertheless—”

“Look, in the old days the Mamur Zapt was responsible for bloody everything in the city. My role is more circumscribed.”

“Call yourself Mamur Zapt and you can’t do anything when the woman you claim you love pleads to you for justice?”

“Look, I’m just concerned with political things—”

“Ah!” said Zeinab. “There we have it!”

“Yes. And that’s not the same thing as ordinary criminal offenses. Why don’t you go to the Parquet?”

“The Parquet,” said Zeinab, “is not political, no? I thought you told me they were a bunch of political, fix-it lawyers? I thought you told me that everything is in the end political? Ah, I see! It is another of these now-it-is, now-it-isn’t things. Like your love!”

“No,” said Owen. “Not like my love at all.”

“Ah, but I think it is! And so,” said Zeinab, “since you do not love me, properly, not truly, not the way I love you, it would not be right for us to make love.”

“All right, then,” said Owen, getting up. “If you feel like that.”

“I do feel like that. And my feelings are not changeable like yours. I shall feel the same tomorrow.”

“Bloody hell!”

“And every day, in fact. Until you have made your mind up. The right way, of course.”

“Well, that
is
a problem!” said Paul. “Should it have priority over the future of the British Empire, though? Ordinarily I would say yes without hesitation. On this occasion, however—”

They were sitting outside on the verandah. Stretching into the distance were the various sports fields of the Club. Far away a hockey match was in progress. The standard of hockey was good. Most officials in Egypt and all the army had served in India.

Because of the heat, matches were played in the late afternoon. They had to start promptly at four, however, since the twilight came early in Egypt and by six it was getting too dark to see.

There were tennis courts as well. Because you lost so much body water in the heat, small boys brought tumblers of iced water at the end of every set. Even so, by the end of a match you were seriously depleted and most players repaired to the bar to rebuild their resources.

“We must look for a compromise,” said Paul.

“I don’t think Zeinab goes in for compromises much,” said Owen gloomily. “It’s all or nothing with her. At the moment it’s nothing.”

“You mustn’t give up,” said Paul firmly. “We’ve got the best brains in Egypt on this. Yours and mine.”

“Where politics is concerned,” said Owen, “that is probably true. In your case, at any rate. In things like this, though—”

“All problems are in the end political. Wasn’t that what you said she said?”

“She said I said it.”

“And it was very perceptive of you. So let’s treat this as a political problem and look for a political solution.”

“No, no, no, no. It won’t work, I tell you. The only thing that would help would be if we could finish off this Leila business.”

“There you are! I told you the problem was a political one.”

“Yes, and you also told me, yesterday, that you couldn’t do a thing about it.”

“That was yesterday and I was solving a different problem then.”

Paul, looking over the fields, considered the matter. There was an indignant shout from the hockey players. A hawk had swooped low over the field of play, picked up the ball in its claws and flown off with it. The ball, however, was too big for it and dropped from its clutch. The referee retrieved it and ordered a bully-off.

“We must do something about those birds,” said Paul. “They’re becoming a problem.”

“Is there a political solution for that, too?” asked Owen.

“Firepower,” said Paul, undisconcerted. “War is the extension of politics by other means.”

“I don’t think that will help with Zeinab.”

“Compromise,” said Paul. “That’s what we’ve got to go for.”

“I tell you Zeinab isn’t interested in compromise.”

“She adopts a strong negotiating position.”

“No, no, it’s not like that, Paul. She means what she says.”

“Heavens! Unorthodox, too! That
does
require some thought.”

A whistle blew and the match ended. The hockey players trooped off and began to make their way back towards the clubhouse.

“The only way forward I can see,” said Paul, “is to distribute the problem through time.”

“
What
!”

“Yes, that’s it. It’s simpler than I had thought. In political terms, that is. It’s just a straightforward bargaining situation distributed over time.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Paul?”

“You see, Zeinab’s not going to move until the Leila business gets settled. The Leila business is not going to get settled until the Agreement gets signed. (I mean, afterwards who cares a damn what Narouz thinks or does?) So all you’ve got to do is wait for the Agreement to get signed. Then you can get going on the case. And then, when you’ve got that sorted out, things will get sorted out with Zeinab, too.”

“How long is all that going to take?”

“Oh, if there’s no hiccup in the negotiations, the Agreement will be signed within a couple of months or so.”

“You mean wait a couple of
months
? And then sort the case out? And only then—?”

“We all have to make sacrifices, Gareth.”

By about ten in the morning the sun was already dazzlingly bright and all living objects were seeking the shade. One of the orderlies came round closing the shutters. The room was plunged into darkness and stayed like that for the rest of the day.

At first it was cool and rather pleasant but as the day wore on, the temperature in the room rose. You opened the door into the corridor but not the window into the sun and that way you got—but perhaps this was fancy—a draft of air.

There were fans suspended from the ceilings in each of the rooms but in Owen’s view all they did was to move hot air from one place to another and he very rarely switched his on. Besides, they blew the papers all over the place.

This morning was papers. He had a pile on his desk which he was working systematically through; reports from agents, neatly docketed and summarized by Nikos, offensive memoranda from the Finance Department, irrelevant offerings from Personnel and aggrieved submissions from the Khedive, the Kadi, the Mufti and all the others who considered that the Mamur Zapt was exceeding his powers.

He pushed them all aside. On the end of the desk was a heap of newspapers. The ones he had were in Arabic, French and English. The ones in Italian, Greek, Armenian, Turkish and Amharic would go to other people in the office. Cairo was a polyglot community and had a lively press.

Too lively on occasion. One of the Mamur Zapt’s duties was to read the press before publication and excise any passage he considered inflammatory. Censorship? Call it ensuring that people’s feelings were not offended.

He picked up one of the newspapers and began reading. It was the influential
Al-Liwa
, nationalist in sympathies and radical in tone. Also windy rhetorical in tone. It was heavy going. His attention wandered.

What was he going to do? He had tried all his usual lines, Paul, Garvin, others, the ones he always used when he wanted to get official policy reversed or amended, and he had got nowhere. The Administration, this time, was showing unusual unanimity.

Obviously, the Agreement mattered. Well, he didn’t mind that; it mattered to him, too. He wanted to stay in Egypt, didn’t he? And, unfortunately, that meant going along with the Khedive. They were there by his invitation and only by his invitation. The other powers didn’t like it—they wanted Britain to get out of Egypt—but so long as the fiction could be maintained that the British were there at the express request of the Egyptian sovereign, there was not much they could do about it.

Owen was all for the Agreement. He was also, on the whole, for the Khedive on the grounds that at least he was the devil they knew. True, there were some things he didn’t like about the Khedive’s regime, the patronage, the corruption, the inefficiency. He could understand the desire of people like Mahmoud for reform and change.

Well, they could certainly have change. The British Government in London, the Administration itself in Egypt, was committed to Progress. Within limits, of course. But it had to be gradual, orderly change, sensible reform, rather on the British model. He was all in favor of that.

And there was no real discrepancy, either, between that— in general—and the Agreement.

It was only when they got down to the particular that problems arose. And Zeinab, unfortunately, tended to think in terms of the particular. It must be something to do, he decided, with her lack of a formal education.

She was very difficult to reason with. He couldn’t see much hope that way.

But nor could he see much hope any other way. He had tried all other things he knew. Everywhere, the way was blocked.

What was he going to do?

And then, as his eye flicked mechanically over the page, it caught something tucked away at the bottom of one of the columns.

How did they get hold of that?” said Garvin.

“I could ask them,” said Owen, “but would that be a good idea?”

“No,” said Garvin, pushing the newspaper back to him, “I suppose you are right.”

“It would just give it more prominence. They would know they were onto something.”

“You’re not going to let it go out, though?”

“No, I’ve cut it, along with a lot of other passages. It’s just one among many. They may think it’s just because it contains a reference to the Khedive’s family.”

Garvin looked at the passage again.

“I don’t think they’ll think that,” he said.

“Then what would you suggest we do?”

“I’ll have to take advice,” said Garvin.

He drummed his fingers on his desk.

“Owen,” he said, “doesn’t this come a bit pat?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been trying to get us not to hush this case up.”

“I’ve been trying to get you not to block it.”

“Same thing. I was wondering—”

“If I’d leaked this myself”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“It falls a little conveniently.”

Owen shrugged. He picked up the newspaper and read the passage again. It read: