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‘A pity. Just the firman, then.’
‘Actually, you don’t need a permit to go there.’
‘Nevertheless, a letter of some kind from you would, I am sure, be of great help.’
‘If you wish. But I don’t think it will help much down there.’
‘Does not the word of the Mamur Zapt strike terror into men’s hearts in even the most remote parts of Egypt?’
‘I very much doubt it. When are you setting out?’
‘At the end of the week.’
‘Well, I’ll get it to you before then. And perhaps in return you would like to accompany me on one of my sorts of expedition?’
‘I very much would,’ said Miss von Ramsberg.
‘You great dope!’ said his friend, Paul.
‘Dope? Why?’
‘Agreeing to give her a letter of recommendation.’
‘It’s just a letter!’
‘It will have your name on it, won’t it?’
‘Yes, but it’s not even a firman!’
‘That’s something we ought to think about introducing,’ said Paul. ‘A firman for people like her.’
‘People like her?’
‘What do you think she wants to travel in Egypt for?’
‘She likes travelling. She’s just crossed the Sinai peninsula –’
‘Yes, I know. Another of these great camel-riders. Pain in the ass, all of them. They upset the local tribes, get killed or kidnapped, and then you’ve got to spend a lot of time – and money! – looking for them.’
‘She seems to have managed it all right without any of those things happening.’
‘Oh, sure! Competent, too. Well, if she’s so competent, how come she lost her way?’
‘Lost her way? I didn’t know that.’
‘The Sinai is one of those areas which, being a border region, does require a firman. When she applied for hers she had to specify a route. Which she then did not follow.’
‘Well, hell, all kinds of things –’
‘She didn’t make any attempt to follow it. She didn’t go anywhere near it. Instead she followed the route that Saladin took against the Crusaders.’
‘Yes, but –’
‘Which is likely to be the route if anyone else was invading Egypt.’
‘Invading!’
‘It would take the Turks a matter of days to get to the border.’
‘She’s not a Turk, she’s –’
‘A German. Yes, I know. And the Germans are building the railways which are going to help them get to the border.’
‘Paul, you don’t mean –?’
‘Yes, I do.’
The Mamur Zapt’s remit was confined to Egypt and he did not follow very closely what was happening beyond its borders. He thought, however, that Paul was making too much of this. It was unlike him to be so alarmist; but perhaps now that he was working so closely with Kitchener, as his Oriental Secretary, some of Kitchener’s own alarmism with respect to anything beyond his borders was rubbing off on him.
‘We can’t be sure, of course,’ Paul said now, softening slightly, ‘but just in case she is, we oughtn’t to go out of our way to encourage her!’
‘It’s just a letter!’
‘Can you write it in such a way as to lead to information coming back as to where exactly she is?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘She’s in Cairo for the best part of a week. It would be interesting to know what she’s up to while she’s here.’
‘Well, as a matter of fact –’
He had given her a choice of two places: the Semiramis, which had a dining room with a romantic view over the river, and the Mirabelle, which was a French restaurant in the noisy Arab Mouski. She chose the Semiramis; Owen would have chosen the Mirabelle.
‘But then I am romantic,’ she protested.
‘Is that what brought you out to these parts?’
‘Yes. But not in the way that you think. There are two sides to being a romantic the side that gets you bowled over by the moon on the water, and the rebellious side. It was that other side that led to me coming out here.’
‘Who or what were you rebelling against?’
‘My family. The life they were charting for me – the life of a rich woman in Germany. My family are’ – she grimaced – ‘respectable. We have an estate. The men for generations have been soldiers, the women, soldiers’ wives. Which means you spend your whole life in boring garrison towns. And then you retire to your boring estate. And it is all so predictable.
‘My brothers knew from the start that they would be soldiers. For a long time I thought I would be a soldier, too, and joined them in their horse-riding. But then they went off and it suddenly became apparent that all there was for me was marriage to some absolutely dreadful man.
‘I bought time. I said I wanted to travel. Some relations took me out with them to the Bosphorus. And then I looked around.’
‘And took up camel-riding instead of horse-riding?’
She laughed.
‘It looks like that,’ she admitted. ‘And maybe there’s some truth in it. I sometimes think I took it up only in order to outdo my brothers. They are both great riders, horse-riders. I wanted to be not only a better rider, I wanted to be a different one.’
‘At any rate, to ride to a different tune.’
‘That is so. That is exactly so.’
‘It is hard, though, especially out here,’ he said, thinking of Zeinab, ‘to be a woman and to be independent.’
‘Less hard than you think, if you’re a foreigner. There are no people from home to order me around and the locals don’t know what to make of me.’
‘But on your travels –’
She shrugged.
‘I carry a gun. In fact, though, the Bedu have never bothered me. It’s only in the towns that there has ever been any trouble. And then it’s usually been only from interfering officials. In the desert, at least you can get away from all that. There’s space, there’s freedom. You can choose your own route.’
‘As you evidently did in the Sinai.’
She gave him a sharp look.
‘You do do your homework,’ she said. ‘You have been making inquiries?’
‘No. I just heard.’
‘Well, it is not important. Is it important to you?’
‘Not to me. To the authorities, perhaps.’
‘The authorities!’ she said contemptuously.
They went out on to the verandah and stood looking down at the river. While they had been dining, the moon had risen. The leaves of the palm trees along the bank had turned silver and immediately below them the water was full of silver sparkles, too, where some men had waded out into the river to fill their water-bags. As they watched, the wind stirred the palm leaves and a long silver ripple ran out from the shore right across the river.
‘Let us go for a walk along the bank,’ she said. And, later:
‘It is a pity you are not coming with me,’ she said.
3 (#uae0dcaf8-2c16-53c9-a7c1-7b3e90151a82)
‘Effendi,’ said the warehouse foreman, almost weeping, ‘on my oath, I did not know. Am I a genie, to see what lies hidden inside the bales?’
‘Did not they seem heavy? Heavier than usual?’
‘If they did, Effendi, the camels did not tell me.’
‘The porters, then; did not they remark on it?’
The foreman looked at the warehouse porters, great, bull-necked men, who would think nothing of carrying a piano single-handed.
‘They remark on much, Effendi. Too much. But they did not remark on this.’
Owen thought it likely that they wouldn’t even have noticed.
‘Where did the bales come from?’
‘Sennar, Effendi.’
‘Sennar? That is a long way.’
‘It is. But, Effendi, on their way they pass through Assuan, and there they are sorted into different lots. Most go on to the cotton markets, but some are rejected, and it is those which come to us.’
‘So the guns could have been put in either at Sennar or at Assuan?’
‘They could, Effendi. They would not have been put in during the march, for the camel men would not have it. But –’
‘Yes?’
‘Effendi, why were they put in? And why,’ he said, distressed, ‘were they sent to us?’
‘That is what has to be looked into.’
Owen asked for the names of the firm’s agents at Assuan. The foreman gave them to him.
‘But, Effendi, they may know nothing about it. Do you know the great traders’ market at Assuan? It is by the river. The caravans come in and camp and unload their goods. The bales would have stood as unloaded, waiting for another caravan, one of ours, to pick them up and carry them on. There are many people in the camp, Effendi, hundreds, if not thousands, and they walk around freely. Anyone might have come to the bales in the night.’
Owen nodded.
‘The bales were brought here, then, from Assuan. How long would they have stayed in your warehouse before they were opened?’
‘They would not have been opened. We would have auctioned them as they stood.’
‘But surely buyers wish to examine the goods before bidding?’
‘The goods are taken up to our place near the Market of the Afternoon on the day before the auction. Then anyone can come in and see them.’
‘Would they open the bales?’
‘Not usually. They come and feel the cotton, Effendi, that is all they need.’
‘So that if someone knew that the goods were arriving, they would break in either to your warehouse or to your place near the Market of the Afternoon and take the guns?’
‘They could, Effendi. But our warehouse is safe. We have an interest in making it so. And at our place near the Market of the Afternoon we have a watchman.’
Owen had his own theories about the efficacy of watchmen; especially near the Market of the Afternoon.
‘But, have you thought, Effendi,’ said the foreman, ‘there is no need to break into either; provided you are prepared to pay the highest price at the auction.’
‘I really don’t think –’ began Owen.
