The Girl in the Nile (14 page)

“Did he know his name?”

“He wasn’t sure. He thought he had seen him, though, at Gamal’s soirées. He had usually been with a girl, an Arab girl, which was unusual, of course, and had made him stand out.”

“Leila?”

“Probably. Anyway, he saw him again in the office at
Al-Liwa
just before the item appeared. Or would have appeared if you had not crossed it out. So he thinks perhaps it came from him.”

“Could he check?”

“No. He says you don’t check things like that at a radical paper like
Al-Liwa
.”

“Fair enough. It would be useful to have the bloke’s name, that’s all.”

“Well—” said Zeinab, looking smug.

“Well, what?”

“I had an idea. Do you remember that when we were talking to Gamal and his friends they mentioned some of the men that Leila had gone around with?”

“Suleiman.”

“And others. Well, one of them—you remember?—was a journalist.”

“So he was. But I don’t remember—”

“Hargazy. That was his name. Anyway, I checked. And—” Zeinab paused dramatically.

“Yes?”

“He works for
Al-Liwa
.”

“Does he now? Does he now?”

“Yes,” said Zeinab, pleased with the effect. “Not all the time. He is not on their permanent staff—they don’t have many permanent staff, of course, because you put them in prison—”

“No, I don’t.
Al-Liwa
doesn’t make any money; that’s why they don’t have many permanent staff.”

“Anyway. Hargazy just does the occasional article for them. He covers demonstrations, that sort of thing, Gamal’s friend said.”

“I’ll take a look at him.”

“
We’ll
take a look at him. That is why we are going to the theater. I’ve asked Gamal to invite him specially. And, just to be sure, I’ve asked Gamal’s friend, the one who works in
Al-Liwa
, to be there too.”

“My God!” said Owen. “Anything else?”

“Not at the moment,” said Zeinab.

Owen kissed her. That much, at least, she allowed.

The Arab Theater was a barnlike building which on its better days could seat an audience of two hundred. This was not one of its better days. The Arab predilection for drama, at least in personal relationships, did not extend to a taste for Shakespeare’s comedies translated into Arabic, and the house was less than half full.

The first three rows, seated in rather tatty red plush armchairs, were occupied by Gamal’s friends and supporters and were respectable, at least in terms of numbers. It was on the wooden benches behind that the gaps appeared. They were, in fact, mostly gap.

Behind them was a row of flimsily partitioned wooden boxes. Half of them, the ones with wooden grilles, were for the women. The others were for the nass taibin, the really well-to-do.

This presented a problem for Zeinab, who was quite definitely a woman but didn’t like to sit invisible and fenced off from her friends. She was, however, also well-to-do, so she compromised by sitting in the open box next to the screened harem ones.

She was, though, the only woman doing this and attracted pointings-out and mutterings, not to say ribaldry. She had made a gesture in the direction of decency by wearing a veil, behind which she sat disdainfully. She was, nevertheless, not entirely comfortable.

Gamal and one or two of his friends had joined them in the box and Gamal was not entirely comfortable either, though for different reasons.

“They are not laughing,” he said. “This is terrible!”

“They are enjoying it quietly,” said Owen soothingly.

“Yes, but—are they not seeing the jokes? Haven’t I brought them out sufficiently?”

“It’s not always easy to get the jokes. Even in the English.”

“I should have brought them out more.”

“That’s not so easy. So many of them are based on wordplay, puns.”

“But you see, that’s why I chose the play. Arabic has a tradition of wordplay, too. I thought I would bring out the affinity between Elizabethan English and classical Arabic.”

“You have,” Owen assured him, “you have!”

Zeinab followed the play with interest.

“I like that bit,” she said. “When she sends him away to make jokes in a hospital. ‘To move wild laughter in the throat of death.’ Yes, I like that.”

“I agree with him,” said Owen. “Twelve months is too long.”

“What I
don’t
like,” said Zeinab, “is having men play the women’s parts.”

“You have to do that,” said Gamal. “It’s unseemly to have women onstage.”

“I’ve seen women onstage here,” Owen objected.

“Ah yes. Foreign women. And sometimes we have Jews. But not Arab women; that wouldn’t be right.”

“It’s not right to have boys,” said Zeinab, “not when it’s a question of making love.”

“It’s not
making
love,” said Gamal. “It’s talking love.”

“There’s something to be said for that,” said Zeinab, with a sidelong glance at Owen.

“In England in Shakespeare’s time,” said Owen, disregarding her, “the women’s parts would probably have been played by boys.”

“I am against confusion on a matter like this,” said Zeinab.

Fortunately, some of Gamal’s friends burst into the box at this point.

“Brilliant, Gamal! Exquisite!”

“The wit!”

“You think so?” said Gamal, pleased. “I was worried—”

They bore him off to their favorite café.

Owen and Zeinab tailed along. Zeinab was talking to a tall, thin youth who seemed rather overwhelmed by her presence.

“You’re sure?” she said.

“Yes,” said the youth, shyly but firmly.

Zeinab dropped back alongside Owen.

“This is Hafiz. He works on
Al-Liwa
.”

“A paper I always read,” said Owen truthfully.

“Really?” said the young man, gratified. “I’ve only just started there. They don’t let me do much yet. Copyediting, that sort of thing.”

“They have a very small staff. You’ve done extraordinarily well to get onto it at all.”

“Well,” said the young man modestly, “I suppose I had quite a reputation. I used to edit a radical student newspaper.
Sword of Islam
. I don’t suppose…?”

“Oh yes,” said Owen, again truthfully. “I have read it.”

He read all the radical papers.

“Excellent,” he assured the young man. “I am sure you have a considerable career ahead of you.”

“I was asking Hafiz,” said Zeinab, “if Hargazy was the one who came to the office.”

“Which is Hargazy?”

Zeinab pointed out a balding man in an open-necked red shirt.

“And was he?”

“Yes,” said Hafiz.

When they reached the café, Zeinab drew up a chair beside Hargazy.

He responded to her at once. Most people did.

“I don’t think we’ve met?”

“Although I’ve certainly seen you,” said Zeinab. “You must be one of the few friends of Gamal that I don’t know.”

“I know Feisal better than I know Gamal. He brings me along,” said Hargazy, smiling, “to occasions like this.”

They talked about the play.

“You obviously know a lot about writing,” said Zeinab.

“I should,” said Hargazy. “That’s how I earn my living.”

“Really? A playwright? Or perhaps a novelist?”

“Not yet,” admitted Hargazy, a trifle grudgingly. “I’ve got one or two things coming along. Rather good things, actually. But at the moment I’m still freelancing.”

He told her he contributed to
Al-Liwa
.

“That’s a real paper,” said Zeinab enthusiastically. “I wish I could work for it.”

“Well,” said Hargazy, laughing, “I’m afraid that’s out of the question. A woman, after all—”

“Women do write,” said Zeinab. “In France they write.”

“Ah, in France.” Hargazy shrugged his shoulders.

“I
have
seen you before,” said Zeinab. “And wasn’t it with a girl? An Arab girl? I remember, because it was so unusual. What was her name?”

“Leila.” He looked at her a little warily.

“That’s right. How is she? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

The man didn’t reply. He looked down at the ground.

“I’m sorry,” said Zeinab. “Perhaps you’ve split up?”

“No,” said Hargazy, “no.”

“She looked an interesting girl. I had a sort of fellow feeling for her.”

“Really?” Hargazy looked at her sharply. “Why should you have a fellow feeling for her?”

Now it was Zeinab who shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Nothing, really. It was just that she was another Egyptian girl. Among so many foreign ones.”

“That was it,” said Hargazy. “That was what made her stand out.”

“I shouldn’t ask about her,” said Zeinab. “I’m sorry.”

“No, not at all. It’s good to ask about her.”

“No, it’s not,” said Zeinab. “I remember now: She is dead.”

“Yes,” said the man, “she is dead.” He looked down at the ground, then looked up. “They killed her,” he said.

“ ‘They’?”

“The ones who kill us every day.”

“I don’t understand,” said Zeinab.

“You must understand,” said the man. He waved an arm excitedly. “The ones who hold us down. Stamp on us. Destroy what is best of Egypt.”

“The British?”

“They are just the tools,” said Hargazy contemptuously. “If it wasn’t them it would be the Turks. Or the French. No, it’s the ones who bring them in, who brought them in in the first place—”

“The Khedive?”

“And the rich. The whole pack of them. They are like a great yoke sitting on our shoulders. They weight us down, they rob us, they starve us. They beat us—”

His shoulders heaved.

“They beat me,” he said in a strangled voice. “When I was a boy. The Pasha’s overseer struck my father. I said: ‘Do not do that.’ He said, ‘I will teach you to talk to me like that.’ And then he beat me, and my father watched—and did nothing!”

His voice choked.

“It was then I realized: he could do nothing. Nothing, while all those people were in place. Nothing, while they were the ones who held the curbash.”

Zeinab, that daughter of a Pasha and representative of the rich, sat silent.

“They kill us,” said the man bitterly. “And they killed Leila.”

“If they killed Leila,” said Zeinab, “then that should be made known.”

The man looked at her sharply and seemed about to speak. Then he thought better of it.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

“If you need help,” said Zeinab, “call on me.”

There was, said Nikos, a deputation waiting to see him.

“Show them in,” instructed Owen.

“I can’t. They won’t fit in.”

“How many of them are there?”

“Sixty,” said Nikos. “So far.”

Owen had been conscious for some time of growing movement in the courtyard below. He went to the window and pushed open the shutters. The courtyard was full.

“I revise my estimate,” said Nikos. “Eighty.”

“What do they want?”

“It’s something to do with bodies,” said Nikos.

Owen went down into the courtyard. A little group of men were standing by the door waiting for him. Their faces seemed half familiar.

Georgiades suddenly appeared beside him.

“Marwash,” he said, indicating one of the half-familiar faces. “He’s the father of the girl.”

“Girl?”

“The one whose tomb they used to put the arms in.”

“Oh yes.”

He recognized some of the faces now. There was the village omda and there was the local sheikh. And there was the fiki who had gone to the tomb with the women to chant the readings.

Georgiades, for some reason, was looking at him closely.

“Haven’t I seen you before?” he said.

“You saw me at the tomb,” replied the man.

“Somewhere else too.”

The sheikh came towards Owen. He was a religious sheikh and presided at the mosque the girl’s father attended.

They exchanged the prescribed greetings.

“A sad business,” said Owen. “My heart goes out to the father and to all the family. Those responsible will be caught and punished.”

It was a serious matter to profane a tomb. Apart from the distress it caused, there was the affront to religious susceptibilities. The authorities were always prompt to support the Mufti and the religious sheikhs on a thing like this. It could so easily spill over into civil disorder and violence.

“So they should be,” said the sheikh. “Ali Marwash is greatly respected. However, that is not the reason why I have come to see you.”

“No?”

Owen looked round. The courtyard was now overflowing with serious-faced, white-galabeahed men. There were others outside the gates. Outside the gates, too, he could see some respectably dressed women. It was unusual for women to appear at such a public occasion.

Policemen, armed, filed out of the building and took up position. He signed to them to keep back.

“Your troubles are my troubles,” he said to the sheikh. “What can I do to help you?”

“It is the girl’s body,” said the sheikh.

“That it should be disturbed in this way is most regrettable.”

“It is not there.”

“Not there?” said Owen, dumbfounded.

“It is not in the tomb.”

Surely his men had not removed the body with the guns? “When we looked, it was not there.”

“How can this be?”

“I don’t know,” said the sheikh, “but these are evil times.”

“Has search been made?”

“Where should search be made?”

Perhaps the arms runners had removed the body, finding there was not enough room for the arms. But then, where would they have put it?

“The Place of Tombs,” said Owen. “Perhaps it has been cast aside.”

“We have looked,” said the sheikh, “but we could not find it. And so we have come to you.”

“It is wrong,” said one of the men beside him, “wrong to trouble the dead.”

There was a murmur of assent from the crowd.

“Cannot a body be left to rest in peace?” asked someone else. The mutter grew louder. Beyond the gates a woman began to ululate.

“Who can have done this evil thing?”

“Not one of us,” someone shouted from the back of the crowd.

“No,” the fiki called back, “it was some unbeliever, I’ll be bound!”

“Shut up!” snapped Owen.