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‘I’ve had them before,’ he said.
‘The same writing?’
‘It’s a letter-writer’s hand,’ said McPhee, who, despite his eccentricity, knew his Egypt.
‘Got one?’
McPhee laid it before him.
‘It’s the same as mine,’ said Owen. ‘And the same as everyone else’s. Whoever it is always used the same writer.’
‘We could look out for him, I suppose,’ said McPhee. ‘Though there are dozens of letter-writers in the city.’
‘The ones to you, and to the Mamur Zapt,’ said Nikos, the Secrets Clerk, ‘were both posted in the Box.’
Fastened to the wall outside the Governorate was an old wooden box in which from time immemorial it had been the habit of the citizens of Cairo to deposit petitions, complaints about the price of bread, denunciations of their neighbours and accusations against their neighbours’ wives, together with sundry informations which were thought might be of interest to the Mamur Zapt. And some of them were.
McPhee had told him once – McPhee was a fount of such curious knowledge – that it was like the ‘Bocca del Leone’ at Venice, a letterbox decorated with a lion’s head, into which Venetians could drop communications which they wished to bring to the attention of the authorities. In Venice the communications had to be signed. In Cairo the informant could remain anonymous, but Owen, who liked the custom, felt that didn’t matter. In principle it was a way of giving every citizen a chance to communicate with the highest in the land; although these days the Mamur Zapt was not, as he once had been, the right-hand man of the Sultan, the most powerful of all his Viziers.
‘The point is,’ said Nikos, whose duty it was to unlock the Box every morning and bring its contents to Owen, ‘we could have the Box watched.’
Neither Owen nor McPhee liked the idea. To McPhee it was an affront to the spirit of the city. Owen was uncomfortable with the idea too, though he rationalized his discomfort away on the utilitarian grounds that once the anonymity of the Box was breached, its value as a democratic means of communication would be lost.
Nikos, the ever-realistic Copt, shrugged. He wasn’t, after all, the one who had been receiving the death threats.
For some days now the weather in Cairo had been unusually hot. Fans were whirring overhead in all the offices. The green shutters on the windows were kept closed. The windows themselves hung open and a little air, and a thin sunlight, came through the slats. In Owen’s, as in all Cairo offices, a vessel of drinking water stood in the window where the incoming air might cool it. Not today, however; the water was lukewarm. Owen summoned the office orderly and asked for some ice.
The orderly spread his hands.
‘Effendi, there is none in the ice box. There has been a run on it this week. Everyone else has thought the same as you; only they have thought of it first.’
Owen looked at his watch. It was a bit early to go to the Sporting Club.
‘However,’ said the orderly cheerfully, ‘the ice man comes this morning and when he comes I will bring some ice along for you.’
He still hadn’t come by lunchtime, but when Owen went down into the yard he saw the donkey with its great heavy bags on either side coming in at the gate.
‘No, Effendi, I am not late,’ protested the ice man. ‘I am very busy, that’s all. All the offices want ice, but I’ve only got one donkey, haven’t I?’
‘Well, have you?’ said Owen. ‘I would have thought there were other donkeys that might be called on. And other ice men, too, at a time like this when you need help.’
‘Effendi, they are as I am: working themselves to death. In this heat everyone wants ice. The palace wants ice, the hotels want ice, all the barracks want ice. So they cannot help me when I do the government offices. And the government offices want ice most of all. Fortunately I am a man of diligence and resource and so they get ice. Eventually.’
He fished in one of the saddlebags and produced a loadshaped block of ice wrapped in sacking.
‘You want ice, Effendi? You have it. So what are you complaining of?’
Once the funeral was over, the Signora assumed control of the business. The auctions started again.
‘I thought you said there was some cotton?’ said the crumpled Greek.
‘There is,’ said the Levantine wearily, ‘but it’s still in the warehouse. As I told you, the Parquet’s interested in it.’
‘Still?’ said the Greek, aghast.
‘Still.’
‘You don’t know when –?’
The Greek thought for a moment.
‘Presumably you’ve got loads coming into your warehouse all the time?’
‘That’s right.’
‘With cotton?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Any coming in soon?’
‘There is, I believe,’ said the Levantine coldly, ‘a load coming up from the Delta sometime.’
‘Ah, the Delta?’ The Greek seemed interested; indeed, strangely, cheered.
‘It’ll be coming in next month.’
‘Alexandria,’ said the Greek with satisfaction. ‘I like the sound of that.’
‘What?’ said the Levantine.
‘Alexandria. The Delta. That’s much better than Sennar.’
‘Sennar? What’s that got to do with it?’
‘It’s a hell of a place.’
‘The cotton’s the same’ said the Levantine, puzzled.
‘Ah!’ said the Greek, laying his finger alongside his nose.
‘Perhaps it’s different to people who know,’ said the Levantine, impressed.
‘It’s not the cotton, it’s the place,’ said the Greek.
The Levantine looked puzzled, then shrugged his shoulders and moved away.
The Greek went on poking round the lots that were coming up for auction.
After a while he went up to the Levantine again.
‘Yes?’ said the Levantine reluctantly, over his shoulder.
‘This load that you’ve got in your warehouse at the moment, the bales that the Parquet are so interested in: it will be coming through at some time?’
‘Yes,’ said the Levantine.
The Greek pinched his fingers, as if feeling a crisp note.
‘I wonder – is anyone else interested in it, do you know? Not the Parquet, I mean. Another dealer?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I mean, you do have cotton from time to time, don’t you? So there will be people who know. Perhaps they’ll have bought from you before.’
‘Well, I don’t know that I’d call them regular customers –’
‘But they know, don’t they? They know about the cotton. I was just wondering if any of them were particularly interested this time?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
The Greek pinched his fingers again and winked.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘it could be of great help to me to know their names.’
He pinched his fingers.
‘Well,’ said the Levantine, weakening. ‘All right.’
‘And anyone else,’ said the Greek, smiling encouragingly, ‘who shows an interest.’
The Greek wandered out of the showroom, sauntered along the edge of the Market of the Afternoon, and then dived into one of the little streets beneath the Citadel. He came to rest in a little, dark, almost subterranean coffee house.
Owen followed him in.
‘You’re going to have to buy that cotton if you’re not careful,’ he said.
The Greek settled himself comfortably on the stone slab and sipped his coffee.
‘At the last moment,’ he said, ‘I shall feel the cotton and look disappointed. Then I shall ask him if he’s got any more coming in.’
‘They get cotton from both the north and south,’ said Owen. ‘The lot with the guns in comes from the south.’
‘I know,’ said the Greek. ‘Sennar. Then Assuan. A pity.’
‘Pity? Why?’
The Greek looked slightly embarrassed. ‘I thought you might want to send me – I was hoping it would be Alexandria.’
‘Alexandria?’
‘I thought I might take Rosa. She’s been looking a bit peaky lately.’ The Greek looked down at his coffee. ‘It’s the baby, you know.’
‘Baby!’
‘Due in the summer. July.’
‘Baby!’
Rosa was about fourteen. At least – Owen began to calculate, time passed more quickly than you thought – maybe she was a bit more than that now. Sixteen? Seventeen?
‘Congratulations! To both of you. Tell Rosa I’m delighted.’
‘Thanks. I will.’
‘July, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘And she’s looking a bit peaky?’
‘It’s the heat. She gets tired.’
‘So you thought a holiday would do her good?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Seems a good idea to me. Take her with you … But, hey, you’re not going to Alexandria! The guns came up from Assuan!’
‘It just seemed a good idea … Two birds with one stone …’
‘But it’s not two birds with one stone! You’re not going to Alexandria. There’s no reason why you should go to Alexandria! Assuan, the guns came from Assuan!’
‘All right, all right.’
‘You can take a holiday after!’
Baby! The shocks were raining in fast. First Mahmoud getting married, now Rosa having a baby. He would have to tell Zeinab.
On second thoughts, perhaps he wouldn’t tell Zeinab.
4 (#uae0dcaf8-2c16-53c9-a7c1-7b3e90151a82)
The warehouse this morning was buzzing with activity. Strapping, bulging-armed porters were carrying things to and fro, the harassed warehouse foreman ran about chiding everybody, and the Signora herself, black-dressed, arms folded, stood firm at the centre of the maelstrom.
Two carts were being loaded, one bound for the Ismailiya showrooms, the other for the premises near the Market of the Afternoon. Now that the Signora had taken over the management of the business, the auctions were beginning again.
Among the goods being put on the Market of the Afternoon cart were the bales of cotton. Owen had decided that there was no need to hold them longer, now that the arms had been extracted. The arms themselves were piled in a corner, black and leaden, looking oddly at home among the bric-a-brac that surrounded them.
