The Last Cut

Chapter 9

‘I don’t want to see him!’ shouted Ali Khedri. ‘I don’t ever want to see him. Why does he come to see me?’

‘He came to offer you the hand of friendship,’ said Owen reprovingly.

‘I spit in his hand! He kills my wife, he kills my daughter, he takes my land! And then he talks of friendship!’

‘Come, this is wild talk,’ said Owen. ‘If he has done you injury, he wished to make amends.’

‘What amends can there be after what he has done?’

‘All that is in the past.’

‘You have seen my house. You know how I live. Is that in the past?’

All is not the fault of the past.’

‘I tried to put the past behind me and then he sent his son!’

‘What are you saying?’

‘He sent his boy.’

‘Suleiman?’

‘Is that his name? I know the Devil has many names but did not know that was one!’

‘This is wild talk. What has the boy done?’

‘He took my daughter. Was it not enough to take my land? Did he have to take my daughter too?’

‘If the land was taken, it is nothing to do with the boy.’ And the boy is nothing to do with the father?’

‘Not in this. The father did not know. He was afraid to tell his father. As Leila was afraid to tell you.’

‘You expect me to believe that? That the Devil does not know his works?’

‘This talk of the Devil is foolish. The boy’s love was innocent. He did but look upon her.’

‘And she looked back. Is that innocent, too?’

‘She did but look.’

‘And smile. Is that innocent also?’

‘With a pure heart, yes. And hers was pure.’

And talk. That, too, is innocent?’

‘It was but talk. They meant nothing by it.’

‘He meant something by it.’

‘No more than any young boy does.’

‘He knew who she was. And you still say he meant nothing by it?’

‘He recognized a playmate from his childhood. That was all.’

And he wanted to play with her again!’

‘His heart was as innocent as hers. They were both as children.’

‘He knew who she was and she knew who he was and you call that innocent?’

‘They wished to put the past behind them. As you should, too.’

‘You think he wished to put the past behind him?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Then why did he seek her out?’

‘He did not seek her out. He saw her by chance.’

‘In the whole of this big city, where no man knows another and there are a million faces, he found her by chance?’

‘I think it more likely than that he should seek her out.’

‘You do not know him,’ said Ali Khedri with conviction. ‘Nor his father.’

When Mahmoud had arrived at the water-carrier’s house he had found it empty and the whole quarter in uproar. Shortly before, the police had removed Ali Khedri to the local caracol, a consequence less of his attack on Suleiman’s father-the police took a relaxed view of street brawls-than of his inability to calm down. In the end, the police, exasperated, had been obliged to clip him over the head with a baton; but then, as they had explained to Mahmoud, they could not leave him lying there, ‘lest his adversary return and stab him,’ and so had taken him to the police station.

Indifferent to finer points of justice, they had taken Suleimans father as well, and had been on the point of thrusting him into the cell with Ali Khedri when Mahmoud, fortunately, had arrived.

He and Owen exchanged glances. They had interrogated many times together and did not need to speak. Mahmoud took over.

‘Why should he seek her out?’ he asked.

‘To destroy me.’

‘You make too much of this,’ said Mahmoud. ‘It was chance that brought them together.’

‘Was it chance that brought him to the Gamaliya:’ demanded Ali Khedri. ‘Was it by chance that he was always creeping around? Spying on me, so that I could never go out of my door without him watching?’

‘He came but to gaze on your daughter. He was but a lovesick calf.’

‘Oh, was that it?’ said Ali Khedri, affecting surprise. ‘Was that all it was? And I thought he was seeking a way to destroy me!’

‘This is sick fancy!’ said Mahmoud.

‘Well, would that not have been enough?’ whispered Ali Khedri, more to himself than to Mahmoud. ‘Without the other?’

‘What other?’

Ali Khedri took no notice.

‘Would that not have been enough to end my hope?’

‘Hope?’

‘Of escape,’ said Ali Khedri. ‘Of life. Of not ending life like a dog.’

‘Through marrying your daughter to Omar Fayoum?’

‘It was there,’ whispered Ali Khedri. ‘There in my hand. And she took it from me.’

‘She did not take it from you,’ said Mahmoud. ‘You took it from yourself.’

‘She betrayed me.’

‘She did not betray you. She sent the boy away.’

Ali Khedri made a gesture of dismissal.

‘It was too late,’ he said. ‘By then the whole world knew. Omar Fayoum knew.’

‘The boy wished to come to you. Fie wanted to ask you for her hand. He would have given you more than Omar Fayoum.’ The water-carrier smiled bitterly.

‘You think so?’ he said.

‘He would have persuaded his father. His father loves him.’

‘Loves him?’ said Ali Khedri, almost as if he were encountering the words for the first time.

‘His father came to you,’ Mahmoud reminded him, ‘seeking to make amends.’

Ali Khedri stared at him for a moment and then, very deliberately, leaned to one side and spat.

‘That is what I think of his amends,’ he said.

He had not injured Suleiman’s father seriously. The neighbours, alarmed by the shouts, had come running and prised Ali Khedri’s hands from his throat. Mahmoud asked him if he wished to press charges.

‘What would be the point?’ he said.

(5’tsss’t?)

Owen and Mahmoud made a tour of the Gamaliya. The quarter was quiet now. In front of Ali Khedri’s house, however, there was still a small knot of people. Mahmoud went across to them.

‘Return to your houses!’ he said. ‘There has been enough bad work for one night.’

‘What of Ali Khedri?’ someone asked.

‘He stays in the caracol for the night.’

‘It was not his fault. Why did that man have to come pestering?’

‘He came to offer the hand of friendship.’

One of the men spat derisively into the darkness. Owen thought it was Fatima’s husband. He could see now that the group consisted largely of water-carriers.

‘If he means friendship, why is that boy always creeping around?’ said one of them.

‘He is but a love-sick calf. His heart had gone to Leila.’

‘Leila is dead now,’ said someone, ‘and he still creeps around.’

‘Tell him to keep out of the Gamaliya!’ called someone from the back of the group. Again Owen thought it was Fatima’s husband.

‘Let there be no trouble!’ said Mahmoud sternly. ‘Or others will find themselves joining Ali Khedri in the caracol!’

The group dispersed. Two of them crossed to Owen’s side of the road. They had not seen him before. One of the men was Fatima’s husband. He looked at Owen with hate in his face. And you, too!’ he said.

‘Effendi,’ said Yussef, Owen’s orderly, diffidently as he came into his office the next morning, ‘I think you may need this.’

He put a small embroidered pouch on Owen’s desk.

‘What is it?’

‘It is a magic charm. My wife has sewn it and inside there is a holy stone that the Sheikh has blessed.’

‘Well, thank her very much-thank you very much, but- exactly why do I need it now?’

‘If it was just the Jews, that would be nothing. They are cunning and devious, it is true, but then, you are cunning and devious also. But when you are up against this-?’

‘One moment,’ said Owen; ‘What am I up against?’

Yussef laid his forefinger alongside his nose.

‘Let us not speak the word. But, Effendi, I am with you. We are all with you. I said to my wife: “Now he is really up against it!” And she said: “Let us pray for him.” And then she thought of the magic amulet. “Let us do what we can,” she said; for we all want the Cut to be saved. Her especially, for, as I have said, she depends on it to have her babies.’

‘That is very kind of you, Yussef. But I don’t quite follow… Exactly what-?’

‘The regulator was one thing. Bad enough-believe me, Effendi, I know what water means, my family comes from the Delta-but who would have thought it would have gone for the Cut? I said, it must be out of its mind! But the Sheikh said, no, it was not out of its mind, it was just very angry. That’s because there’s a lot wrong with the world, and especially with the dams. We’ve taken things a bit too far, it’s all got out of hand, and that’s what it’s doing, just reminding us. Well, I can understand that with the regulator, but why go for the Cut? It wouldn’t have hurt it, would it, just to have held off for another week.’

‘Just a minute, Yussef, who or what is “it”? Who, or what, is going for the Cut?’

‘Why, Effendi, you saw for yourself. It was having a go at The Bride. The Lizard Man!’

The newspapers, too, were giving the Lizard Man a new lease of life. They were full of him. The unfortunate Babikr was quite forgotten as the link was made with the attempt on the Manu-fiya Regulator. One or two of the papers mentioned him as a junior accomplice or surrogate for the Lizard Man but most of the papers lost sight of him entirely, treating the incident as an unsolved mystery. Or, rather, as a mystery where one knew exactly who had perpetuated the crime but just, somehow, wasn’t able to lay hands on him.

And here he was popping up again, with vaguely heroic accretions, a sort of Robin Hood perpetually thumbing his nose at the law! And, like Robin Hood, in some strange way a representative of the poor. Owen realized, as he read, that the figure was capturing popular doubt about the new dams, not so much resentment at them as worry and suspicion, the feeling that, as the fiki had said, a balance had been disturbed.

The belief that the Lizard Man had now attacked the Cut had, though, divided as well as aroused public opinion. While there were doubts about the dams, there were none about the Cut; and so with many people the attack‘ on the Cut was transformed into something positive. It did not mean, they held, that the Lizard Man was against the Cut. On the contrary, he was for it. This was just his way of registering his displeasure at the proposal to end it.

Whichever view one took, though, Owen noted with satisfaction, it had the effect of displacing the Jews from the scene. He was half minded to go down to the Muslim gravediggers and tell them that since the Lizard Man was taking a hand, they had better stay out of it!

But there was something else about the newspapers’ responses that Owen found puzzling. Most of the press was strongly Nationalist, which meant that it was normally committed to a progressivist, ‘modern’ line. While it did not dare to turn up its nose at something as popular as the Cut, it usually tried to keep its distance from anything that smacked so strongly of backward-looking superstition. But here it was plunging heavily into popular feeling, embracing the Lizard Man for all it was worth!

What was even stranger was that it was using the situation to make a sharply critical attack on something it usually supported, the new dams and the new extensions of the irrigation system. Why were the Nationalists changing tack?

Owen went down to the Cut to see that all was well. McPhee had had the same thought and when Owen arrived was busy posting constables on top of the temporary dam and round the base of the earth cone.

‘It’s probably overdoing it,’ he said, ‘but-’

‘Are you going to leave them there overnight?’

‘They’re not very happy at the prospect,’ McPhee admitted. ‘This stupid nonsense about the Lizard Man-’

McPhee was discriminating over the ritual and myth that he accepted.

Owen recognized a constable he had worked with.

‘Why don’t you ask Selim?’

Selim beamed when he saw Owen looking at him and waved a hand.

Owen went over to him.

‘Selim, I’d like you to take charge of a few men-’

‘Certainly, Effendi. These thickheads! I know how to handle them. A good kick up the backside-’

‘We want to post a guard overnight and I’d like you to be in charge of it.’

‘Overnight? Here?’

Selim swallowed.

‘Of course, Effendi,’ he said bravely.

He returned to the line, however, perturbed and thinking. Some time later he accosted Owen.

‘Effendi, about that guard duty-’

‘Yes?’

‘I would do it. In fact, I am desperate to do it. Unfortunately, there is a terrible family circumstance that pre-’

‘Oh, come, Selim; there wasn’t one ten minutes ago.’

‘It’s my grandmother, Effendi. She comes from the south, you see. Well, she can’t help that. Someone has to. Only-’

‘What the hell’s that got to do with it?’

‘But, Effendi, I was telling you! She comes from the south, you see. Down in Dinka land. Where there’s nothing but reeds and not a woman in sight. Except my grandmother, of course. Well, it’s very primitive down there. It’s not the place where you’d want to be, believe me, Effendi. Nor me, either.’

‘Selim-’

‘It’s very primitive down there, as I was saying. And each clan has got its totem. Would you believe it, Effendi? The backward buggers! Well, my grandmother’s totem is-you’ll never believe this, Effendi-a lizard! So I’m afraid that rather rules me out.’ ’I don’t see why.’

‘Well, Effendi, it makes it doubly hard for me. I’d see him off, otherwise. What’s a mere Lizard Man to a man like me? Pooh! But, you see, with it being my grandmother’s totem, I’d have to beat him twice. And that, with a Lizard Man, is a bit much!’

‘Well, it would be, Selim, if that were, in fact, your grandmother’s totem. Only I think you may have been misinformed. You see, I know the Dinka totems; and the lizard is not among them. So you’d only have to beat him once. For a man like you.

‘Effendi,’ said Selim, cast down, ‘even a man like me could have problems with a Lizard Man!’

‘I know,’ said Owen, relenting, ‘and therefore I will help you. It so happens that I have a magic amulet here, which, for the sake of our friendship, I am prepared to lend you.’

‘Effendi!’ said Selim, overjoyed. ‘I will kick that Lizard Man in the balls!’

‘That may not be necessary. You see, I think that if there is any problem, it will come from Muslim gravediggers-’

‘Effendi, which shall I break: their backs or their necks?’

‘-or the Jews.’

‘Or both?’

‘Just see they don’t damage anything to do with the Cut, that’s all.’

Selim saluted and returned, buoyant, to the line.

‘Selim, you’ve never agreed!’ Owen heard the men beside him whisper.

‘What is a Lizard Man to me?’ said Selim.

‘But, Selim, he’ll bite your ass off!’

‘I’d like to see him try. Although-’ he inspected his neighbour critically, ‘he may bite yours off.’

‘Why mine, Selim?’

‘Because you’re going to be with me, Abdul.’

As Owen was walking along the street a small stone landed almost at his feet. Surprised, he looked up but could see no one. He wondered for a moment if a hawk had dropped it. But it was hardly shiny enough to attract a hawk’s attention. A moment later another stone skittered past him, so close that it almost hit him. He spun round but again could see no one. Children, no doubt, but all the same it was surprising.

He walked on, turned a corner and then stepped quickly back into a doorway. After a little while he heard the cautious pad of bare feet.

When the boy came round the corner he grabbed him. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘Ow, Effendi! Why you do this to me? I have done nothing!’ Owen held him firmly by the arm. Not by the galabeeyah- cloth could tear.

‘What is your name?’

Ali, Effendi,’ the boy said sulkily.

He was about twelve years old.

‘Where do you live?’

The boy made a gesture.

‘There, Effendi.’

At the end of the street the broken-down houses seemed suddenly to open up. He realized that he was near the Canal. ‘Which one?’ ‘Efjj

He marched the boy down the street.

‘On the other side, Effendi.’

The boy pointed across the dry bed to where a derelict warehouse backed on to the Canal in a fall of rubble.

‘That is not a house.’

‘I don’t have a house,’ said the boy.

‘Do you have a father or mother?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘So who gives you food?’

‘The men do. Sometimes.’

‘Did the men tell you to throw a stone at me?’

The boy was silent.

‘Why do it, then?’

‘You’re not wanted,’ said the boy. ‘Here in the Gamaliya.’

On an impulse, and in some fury, Owen plunged down into the bed, dragging the boy after him. He walked across and climbed up the rubble to the warehouse. There was a cart inside and men were busy around it. They looked at him in consternation.

‘If you want to throw stones at me,’ raged Owen, ‘don’t get a boy to do it!’

‘He’s nothing to do with us,’ one of them said after a moment.

‘He’d better not be!’ said Owen.

He saw now that the cart was a water-cart and recognized the driver. It was the one he’d encountered previously.

‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

‘I keep my cart here,’ the man said. ‘Anything wrong with that?’

A man moved out of the shadow.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘anything wrong with that?’

Owen recognized him, too. It was Ahmed Uthman, Fatima’s husband.

He went up to the two men.

‘Twice,’ he said, ‘I have met you recently. If I have any more trouble from you, it will not be me who is not seen on the streets of the Gamaliya!’

He stood there until they yielded.

‘Come on, Farag,’ called one of the other men. Are you never going to get that horse ready?’

The driver shrugged and returned to his harnessing. After a moment, Ahmed Uthman turned, too, and walked away. As he went, he spat deliberately into the straw.

Owen knew he had to do something. His blood boiled. He went after the man and swung him round.

They stood looking at each other.

‘Well?’ said the water-carrier.

‘I am just marking your face,’ said Owen.

He let the man go, gave the other men a look, and then walked away.

He heard feet scampering behind him, stepped aside and caught the boy again.

‘I was just following,’ the boy protested. ‘I wasn’t going to throw any more stones!’

Owen released him.

‘These are bad men,’ he said, ‘and bound for the caracol. Take care that you do not join them!’

The boy nodded.

Owen turned away. The boy fell into step behind him. Owen put his hand in his pocket and gave him a piastre. The boy saluted his thanks and dropped back.

‘Tell me,’ said Owen, over his shoulder; ‘whose house is that?’

‘Omar Fayoum’s,’ said the boy.

As he turned into a street he saw ahead of him the two water-carriers who had been part of the altercation with the cart driver and Ahmed Uthman the previous day.

‘Hello,’ he said, catching up with them. ‘You, too, still walk the streets of the Gamaliya, then?’

‘Yes,’ said one of the men. ‘But we pick our streets.’

‘And we walk together,’ said the other one.

Owen nodded.

‘It is bad when a man has to do that,’ he said. ‘How long has it been like this in the Gamaliya?’

‘It has been getting worse,’ said one of the men, ‘but it is only lately that it has got like this.’

‘Why is it?’ asked Owen.

The man shrugged.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Perhaps Omar Fayoum wants to fill his bag before the pipes get here.’

Further on, he met Suleiman, just coming out of a public bathhouse. The boy saw him, crossed the street hurriedly, and tried to walk past.

Owen stopped him.

‘Is this wise, Suleiman, to come where you have enemies?’

‘I am not afraid of Ali Khedri!’ said the boy fiercely. ‘Perhaps not. But here in the Gamaliya Ali Khedri has friends.’

‘I am not afraid of his friends, either!’

‘I have met some of his friends. I think it might be wisest not to come to the Gamaliya for the next month or so.’

‘I have my work to do.’

‘Would you like me to speak to the Water Board? I am sure they would be willing to move you to another district.’

To his surprise, the boy shot him an angry look.

‘No,’ he said.

‘I am concerned only for your well-being.’

The boy muttered something and tried to break away.

‘Why do you not wish to be moved? It would be best, you know. Not just because of Ali Khedri’s foolishness but in order to put the past behind you.’

‘Everyone says, put the past behind you!’ said Suleiman bitterly. ‘But what if you do not want to put the past behind you?’

‘She will not come back, Suleiman. Would that she could!’ The boy fidgeted and stared at the ground.

‘It’s not that,’ he was unwillingly. ‘Not just that. I know she will not come back, I do want to put the past behind me. But not-not just in your way. The past is what killed Leila and I want to kill it. I want to kill it here in the Gamaliya. I want to kill the ignorance and stupidity that killed Leila. And,’ said Suleiman, ‘I shall; by bringing my pipes.’

‘It will happen. But let others do the killing.’

‘No!’ said Suleiman fiercely. ‘I want to do it. And I want to do it not just because I want to end it-that is what Labiba says, that I must work to end the squalor and the ignorance so that there will be no more Leilas. Well, that is good, that is right. I want to do that. But I want to do more.’

‘Is not that enough?’

‘No. Because, you see, I know a thing that Labiba does not know. She knows that when you do something like this you make the world a better place. But I know that when you do it, you also hurt people. Well, I know who bringing the pipes will hurt. And,’ said Suleiman, ‘I want to hurt them.’

‘Get the boy out of here!’ said Owen. ‘There’s a gang down here and they don’t like him.’

‘Certainly!’ said the manager at the Water Board. ‘I’ll see him tomorrow.’ He hesitated. ‘However, he may not be very willing. The fact is, I’ve tried to move him before. After the death of-you know about the girl?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I thought, I thought that it would be better to move him. We had a vacancy over in El Hilmiyah but he refused to go.’

‘A junior effendi? Why didn’t you just tell him?’

‘I didn’t have the heart. And besides-besides, he said he would resign. I thought that would be worse.^- ’

‘Did you think he would resign?’

‘He was very adamant. But I will see him tomorrow and try again.’

‘He stands a chance of getting killed if he stays in the Gamaliya.’

‘I will certainly do all I can. But-what if he insists on handing in his resignation?’

Owen thought.

‘He is, as you say, just a junior effendi,’ the manager said. ‘We would not ordinarily go to these lengths. But his father is my wife’s cousin and I would like to do what I could to help him.’

‘Quite so. Look, if he wants to hand in his resignation, do what you can to delay him. Tell him he’s got to give notice. Meanwhile, find something else for him to do, out of the Gamaliya.

There are other people who may be able to influence him. I will speak to them.’

‘We don’t want a killing,’ said the manager. ‘Bringing the pipes in is difficult enough as it is. It will do them nothing but good and yet you would be surprised how many people are against them.’

‘I will certainly speak to him,’ promised Labiba, ‘but I doubt if he will listen to me.’

‘You have more influence over him than you suppose.’

‘Perhaps; but I have found there are limits. I will, however, do my best. And I will also speak to Mas’udi, who has been seeing a lot of him lately. Suleiman has been helping him in his work.’

‘What sort of work?’

‘You are very suspicious, Captain Owen. Humble clerical duties in the evenings, mostly, I gather. Assemblymen have a great need of such help. Unpaid, that is. But I think that Suleiman has also been giving him specialized advice on water. The Nationalists are taking a great interest in water just at the moment.’

‘Yes,’ said Owen. ‘So I have noticed.’

Owen went up to the barrage, where he found Georgiades in the Gardens lying under a tree.

‘I have been walking the Gamaliya,’ said Owen accusingly. ‘It’s been pretty hot here, too,’ said Georgiades hurriedly, scrambling to his feet.

It was, indeed, hot in the Gardens that morning. As Owen had come up from the river, the heat had met him like a blow in the face. The sand was so hot that he could feel it through the soles of his shoes. When he came to the grass of the Gardens it was no cooler. The great walls of bougainvillea and datura acted like sun traps and out on the lawns the heat quivered and danced.

He made at once for the shade of the trees; along with the lemonade sellers, the peanut sellers, the Turkish delight sellers, the pastry and poultry sellers, the water-carriers and everyone else who happened to be in the Gardens at that time. They lay stretched out under the banyan and casuarina trees, every sparse item of clothing removed, including trousers. Even the birds seemed to be gasping in the heat.

‘Where is it, then?’ said Owen.

Reluctantly, Georgiades, not built for speed, led him through the trees towards the regulator. Ahead of them they could see the blue waters of the Nile winking in the sunlight and here and there flashes from the various water-ways enclosed behind the barrage.

They came upon the white surveyor’s tapes he had seen the other day, marking out the line of the new canal. Owen was appalled to see how much of the beautiful gardens they took in.

All this?’

Georgiades nodded, and led him in among the clumps of bougainvillea and clerodendron, already hacked back severely to allow unimpeded progress for the tapes. On the far side, the side nearest the canal, the posts holding the tapes had been torn out and the tapes broken. A loose end of tape led out towards the canal.

Just where it ended, the side of the canal had been broken. The earth had been scraped away to form a shallow trench leading down to the water, rather like the sort of place made for water-buffalo to go down to drink. Only this was too small for a water-buffalo.

The earth had been thrown back to the rear of the trench as if by the paws of some animal, and the wattles which reinforced the sides of the canal at this point, had been snapped and forced aside.

A little group of men were standing looking down at the damage. Among them were Macrae and Ferguson, and also the ghaffir and the gardener.

‘It’s some dog or other,’ Macrae was saying. ‘You’d better make inquiries in the village. And if you see it up here,’ he said to the ghaffir, ‘shoot it!’

The ghaffir swallowed.

‘Effendi,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t look like a dog to me.’

He touched the wattles.

‘What dog could do that?’

‘Well, what do you think it was, then?’

The ghaffir and the gardener looked at each other unhappily. ‘The Lizard Man,’ they said.