The Last Cut (14 page)

5m£)

‘Water-cart?’ said the man from the Water Board indignantly. ‘No it doesn’t! You’re one of the buildings on the pipes!’

‘I’ve never seen them.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you? They’re underground. Look, there are two sorts of pipes and they bring two sorts of water.’

‘From the river?’

‘From our pumping station on the river. One sort of water is filtered and that’s for drinking. That’s the stuff, I hope, that Yussef gives you. The other sort is unfiltered—it comes straight out of the river—and that is for irrigation. It’s the sort of stuff you see in the parks and gardens on watering days. We turn the cocks on and flood the place. And then it all seeps down into the ground and comes back again, into the river. Water-carts? Look, water-carts are a health hazard, about as big a danger to health as that bloody old canal they’re about to fill in. It’s all right when they’re carrying water to damp down the dust in the streets but what some of the buggers do is sell water from the cart for drinking. And that’s not the worst of it!’

‘No?’

‘No. They even tap our pipes—the ones we use to carry water for irrigation in—and sell
that
for drinking!’

‘Did I hear someone say the magic word?’ said Macrae, coming towards them with a bottle.

‘Water?’

‘No. Drinking.’

He poured them both a generous dram. It was the rehearsal for Burns Night that Macrae had invited him to. Scotsmen were there in abundance. So, too, were many whom Owen had hitherto never suspected to be Scottish. Paul, for example. ‘Mother’s side,’ he claimed.

He was talking to the man from the Khedive’s Office.

‘But, just a minute,’ the man was saying, ‘there he is!’

They looked across the room and saw the pink young man who had been responsible for despoiling the Khedive’s Summer Palace.

‘I thought he was in the Glass House?’ said the man from the Khedive’s Office. ‘Being tortured?’

‘Oh, he is, he is!’ Paul assured him. ‘He’s just been let out for this special occasion.’

‘He doesn’t look as if he is being tortured,’ said the Khedive’s man.

‘I should hope not!’ said Paul indignantly. ‘We British are trained to keep a stiff upper lip!’

‘Even so—’

‘Besides,’ said Paul, ‘the whole point is that it should be lingering.’

‘Perhaps you are starting too gently?’ suggested the man from the Khedive’s Office.

‘You think so?’ Paul inspected the pink man critically. ‘Of course, it would be underneath his kilt,’ he said.

‘You mean—?’

Paul nodded.

‘Well, that’s the place to start,’ said the Khedive’s man, impressed. ‘The genitals.’

‘He bears it well, don’t you think?’ said Paul.

‘Well, he does. And yes, perhaps you’re right. You don’t want them to die too quickly. It’s a fine judgement. Well, I’m sure the British know what they’re doing.’

Cairns-Grant was there, also kilted. Owen asked him if he carried a surgical knife in his stocking instead of a skean dhu.

‘Nae,’ said Cairns-Grant. ‘I keep a wee bottle of Islay there. In case the other runs out.’

‘Now, look,’ said Owen, ‘have you been talking to the Nationalists lately?’

‘Are you accusing me of being subversive?’

‘I’m just wondering where all these ideas on health are coming from.’

‘Well. They’re not all coming from me, I can tell you. That lassie, Labiba—’

‘On circumcision, I grant you.’

‘Well, she’s got something there. In the case of pharaonic circumcision—you know, where all the girl’s genital organs are excised—we estimate that complications occur in over fifty per cent of the cases. And where they occur we estimate that death results in over fifty per cent of cases.’

‘Okay, she’s beginning to persuade me. Not that I can do much about it.’

‘Ah, well, there you are, you see. That’s what we all say. And it’s true, you see, not just of circumcision but of a lot of other mortality too. And not just mortality, disease. A lot of it could be avoided. That’s why I’ve been talking to the Nationalists.’

‘And that applies to water-borne illnesses, too?’

‘It does,’ Cairns-Grant looked across the room to where Macrae and Ferguson, bottles in hand, were welcoming new arrivals. ‘Now you see those two laddies; if anyone told them that what they were doing was not for the benefit of the public, they’d laugh at you. And a lot of what they do does benefit the public. Egypt would be a great deal worse than it is if it weren’t for them. They’re grand laddies. But I’m beginning to wonder if they’ve not got it wrong.’

Macrae came bustling across.

‘Are you talking to that auld resurrectionist?’ he said to Owen. ‘I’ll bet he’s touting for business again. “Bring me the bodies, Owen! As long as you keep them coming, I’m all right for a job!”’

Cairns-Grant threw back his head and laughed.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘there’s no doubt I’m in the right place. Egypt’s a great country—for pathologists.’

Later in the evening the reeling began. The dancing, that is. Owen reeled too; and as the evening wore on and the supply of whisky continued, he reeled more and more.

At one point he was sure he could hear Cairns-Grant talking about lizards.

‘Aye,’ he was saying to the pink young man, ‘they shed their tails. Drop them, when they’re startled. When I was on the wards in Alexandria they used to play a game. There were always lizards skittering over the walls, you understand. Well, the game was to clap your hands when a lizard was just above the man in the bed opposite you so that it would drop its tail on him.’

‘Really?’ said the pink young man.

‘What was that?’ said the man from the Khedive’s Office. ‘He’s telling him about the next torture,’ said Paul. ‘We keep these special lizards, and—’

‘Really?’ said the man from the Khedive’s Office, looking thoughtful.

And it was just about then that the orderly came in to fetch Owen.

McPhee was waiting for him outside.

‘Owen, there’s been an attack at the Cut.’

‘What on?’

‘The dam, I think.’

Any idea who by?’

McPhee hesitated.

‘The Lizard Man, they say.’

He and Owen left at once. They found an arabeah in the Place Bab-el-Khalk with its driver sleeping beneath it, woke him and set out through the moonlit empty streets, with the domes and minarets mysterious against the velvety sky. It was about three in the morning and in another hour the city would be waking. Or, at least, some of it would. At the moment, however, there was nothing to impede them as the driver urged his horse along.

At the Cut men were stirring in the darkness but there were not the great crowds that Owen had feared. Selim came running excitedly towards them.

‘Effendi, I have done it! I have killed the Lizard Man!’

‘But, Selim—’ began one of the other constables hesitantly. ‘While these poofters were sleeping!’ said Selim, dismissively. ‘A Lizard Man has but a back like everyone else! That is what I said, didn’t I, Abdul?’

‘You did, Selim. But—’

‘Then it can be broken like anyone else’s back! That is what I said, didn’t I?’

‘You did. But, Selim—’

‘And that is what I did. One blow, Effendi, that was all. But a mighty one!’

‘I’m sure it was!’

‘And there he lies, Effendi! Just the other side of the dam. I thought it best to leave him lest in his death agonies he might sweep me to the ground with his tail and fall upon me. That’s what you’ve got to watch,’ said Selim condescendingly, ‘the tail. It is as with crocodiles. The tail is the most dangerous part. I know he is but a lizard, Effendi, but he’s a hell of a big one!’

‘How did it happen?’ asked Owen.

‘Well, Effendi,’ said Selim, preening himself, ‘I woke in the night and found I wanted to have a pee. So I prised myself loose from Amina’s embraces—she is a dirty slut, I know, Effendi, and but a peanut seller, but when one is far from home one has to find consolation where one can—and went to water the canal bed. And then I thought: “I’ll bet those idle sods are fast asleep!” For, Effendi, as guards they are not to be trusted. So I went to look, Effendi, for am I not Captain of the Guard?’

‘You certainly are,’ agreed Owen.

‘Well, then. But, Effendi, I did not need to look for even from the bank I could hear Ibrahim’s snores. “I will go over there,” I said to myself, “and give that idle bastard a kick up the backside.” But then, Effendi, I had a better idea. A really good one!’

‘You did?’

‘I thought, I will come upon him quietly, like a thief in the night. And I will lift his galabeeyah and bite him in the bum. And then he will think the Lizard Man has got him and shit hot bricks! That will teach the bugger to fall asleep when I am Captain of the Guard!’

‘So, Effendi, I slid forward on my stomach like a lizard. And I had almost got there when I heard a noise, as of another lizard. And then I thought, it
is
another lizard! And then I thought, O, my God, it is the Lizard Man himself! Well, then, Effendi, I lay as one dead!

‘And then I thought, Effendi, “He can have that stupid bastard, Ibrahim, for breakfast if he wants,” and I began to slide away again.

‘But then, Effendi, I stopped. Am I not Captain of the Guard, I said to myself? Am I the man to desert my post? And that stupid bastard, Ibrahim, asleep though he be? So, Effendi, I slid forward again and unshipped my truncheon.

‘And there he was, Effendi, bold as brass, digging at the dam! Oh, ho, my beauty, I said to myself, we’ll see about that! And I gave myself a really big swing and then landed him one right across the back. And he gave a great jump and a mighty groan and then lay still. But, Effendi, afterwards I did not go close for I thought he might twitch. They do, you know. Crocodiles, that is. So—-’

They came round the side of the dam.

‘Bring a lamp!’ said Owen.

‘Selim—’ said the hesitant constable again.

‘What is it, Abdul? Why don’t you go back to sleep? Now that all the real work has been done by others.’

‘Selim, he is still alive!’

Owen lifted the lamp. By its light he could see a huddled figure lying against the face of the dam.

‘Oh, is he? Stand aside, Effendi. Abdul, Ibrahim, get ready to rain blows upon him should he—’

‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ said Owen.

He could see now that the huddled form was that of a man. He went up to him and turned the body over with his foot. ‘Why!’ he said. ‘It’s—’

‘Do you know him?’ said McPhee.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Owen. ‘It’s one of the Muslim gravediggers.’

6NKS&S

‘He’s broken my back!’ groaned the gravedigger.

‘That will teach you not to be the Lizard Man!’ said Selim. ‘Lizard Man?’ said the gravedigger.

‘You are a fortunate man,’ said Owen. ‘It could have been worse.’

‘Lizard Man?’ said the gravedigger, attempting to sit up. ‘I don’t want anything to do with the Lizard Man!’

‘Leave him lying there!’ said Owen. ‘Let the Lizard Man take his own.’

‘Here, look—’ began the gravedigger.

‘What were you doing there?’ said Owen.

‘Nothing!’

‘Right, leave him!’

Owen began to walk away.

‘Hey, wait!’

Owen turned.

‘Well?’

‘I was thinning out the dam,’ said the gravedigger sulkily. ‘In case those Jews get the job.’

‘You were going to make the Cut yourself?’

‘No, no. It’d take more than me to do that. No, I was just thinning it out in one place. So that it would fall on the Jews when they started.’

‘That is a bad thing,’ said Owen severely. ‘Not only that, it is a stupid thing. What if you gain the contract?’

‘We would know what to do.’

‘Are the others with you on this?’

The gravedigger closed his mouth firmly.

‘The contract goes to the Jews,’ said Owen. ‘You have brought this on your own head.’

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By this time there was no point in going to bed. Owen was never able to sleep during the day. Instead, he went to the Bab-el-Khalk. Used though they were to his early ways, the bearers were surprised to see him.

At this time of the morning a night chill still hung over the building. To one fresh out from England, that pink young man, say, the temperature would have seemed pleasantly warm. Those longer in the sun thought of frost. Owen raised the jacket of his collar and huddled himself in his chair.

Fortunately, it was not long before he heard the pad of bare feet and smelled a delicious aroma and then Yussef, who had heard from the other orderlies that his master was in, appeared with coffee.

‘Would the Effendi like me to send the barber in?’ he suggested, seeing that Owen was unshaven.

‘Why, yes!’ said Owen.

‘The Effendi was out all night?’

‘Yes.’

‘Down at the Cut?’

‘Yes. For most of it.’

‘I hope the charm worked,’ said Yussef.

Owen sat up.

‘Why, yes it did, Yussef! Yes, it did,’ he said in surprise.

Restored, he felt able to contemplate his desk. Among the other messages, most of which appeared to be abusive ones from the Accounts Department, there was one from Georgiades. After some thought, and after the barber had visited, Owen put on his sun helmet and set out for the barrage.

The sun, now, was warming everything up, but out on the river, where there was a little breeze, the heat was not yet overpowering. On the left the misty, purple forms of the two great pyramids of Giza soared above the palm groves. On the right, outlined against the horizon, were the airy domes and flying minarets of the great mosque on the brow of Saladin’s Citadel, lit up by the early morning sun.

Soon the barrage itself appeared up ahead, purple and rose in the sun. There was a crowd of people at the landing stage waiting for boats to take them in to the city. The felucca moved in past the water-carriers already filling their bags for the day’s work.

Owen followed one of them up to the Gardens, past the sweet sellers and peanut sellers setting out their stalls, past the lemonade sellers top-heavy with their ornamental urns on their backs, and on through the trees towards the regulator.

Georgiades, alert this time, came to meet him. He led him through the bougainvillea to where the gardener was bent in a rose bed.