The Snake-Catcher’s Daughter

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‘It’s someone in the Gamaliya,’ said the Copt bitterly. ‘Don’t tell me they came right across the city just to break up my shop!’

Owen went inside with him. At the back of the shop were some stairs which led to an upper storey. Some children, huddled on the stairs, peeped down at him.

‘It’s the effect on the kids,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘We’ve always let them run around, play with who they like. They’ve got friends … Now my wife is afraid to let them out of her sight.’

He bent down and began to pick up cylinders from the floor.

‘It’s not the shop I mind about,’ he said. ‘We can always start again. It’s the kids, my wife. How can she go to the suk and look them in the face, knowing what they’ve done? What they could do again? We’ll have to move.’

Owen looked around. The fittings of the shop were very simple. The walls were lined with shelves, as in a cupboard, on which the goods were stored. There was a low counter at the front on which, when a potential customer inquired, particular items could be displayed; or on which, typically, the shopkeeper would sit when he was not working. He worked on the ground behind the counter. Owen could see some tools scattered among the debris.

There was not, in fact, a lot of debris. This was not the moment to tell the man he was lucky; but he was. Owen had often seen worse. This did not look like the random, total violence that usually resulted when a mob ran amok. It was something measured, selected, perhaps, to send a message.

‘Why was it you?’ he asked.