Death of an Effendi. Michael Pearce

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СКАЧАТЬ shooting party. Waiters moved among them carrying silver trays on which were thin-stemmed glasses of sherry, cut-glass tumblers of whisky and some other glasses containing a colourless liquid: vodka, Owen supposed, in deference to the visitors’ tastes.

      One of the princes, Fuad, came across to him.

      ‘Not drinking?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘I suppose not.’ He looked across the terrace. ‘How’s Tvardovsky?’

      ‘All right. So far.’

      The prince considered.

      ‘I think he’s an egg,’ he said.

      ‘I beg your pardon?’

      ‘An expensive Fabergé egg; but cracked.’

      Owen found it hard to get to sleep that night. Partly it was the mosquito netting rigged up around the bed, which made it very hot. A sensible precaution, no doubt, in view of the proximity to water, but one that Owen, in Cairo, was accustomed to doing without. Partly, though, it was the noise the hyenas were making. He could hear them laughing all along the shore.

      He slipped out of his bed and went to the door of the tent. Outside, the moonlight made it as bright as day. In Tvardovsky’s tent, however, next to his, there was a lamp still on. He stepped across and put his ear to the flap. Tvardovsky seemed to be working. He heard the rustle of papers and from time to time a low exclamation, as if the Russian was surprised at what he found.

      Owen went back to his tent. Out behind the reeds the moon was silvering the water. A puff of wind ruffled the leaves of the palm trees along the terrace and a moment later broke up the silver into myriads of glittering fragments. Owen thought he heard the plop of a fish.

      Over by the kitchen there was a sudden shout and then, clear in the moonlight, Owen saw a hyena loping away, carrying something in its mouth. Whoever had shouted did not bother to chase it and soon, out in the shadows, Owen heard the crack as the creature’s powerful jaws got to work.

      And now there was a different noise. From one of the tents further along the row he could hear a woman’s soft moans. Well, that was what she was there for, presumably.

      The moans quickened, became urgent and then sighed away, and then for a while all was quiet. Owen wondered whether to go back to bed but knew that if he went back too soon he would stay awake. He thought about going down to the lake. But there was always Tvardovsky.

      He heard someone moving among the tents and then, to his surprise, for he had assumed she was otherwise engaged, he saw the blonde woman. She was wearing a long black kimono. Her feet were bare. He stepped back from the doorway. There was a swish of silk as she went past. Outside Tvardovsky’s tent she hesitated and then went in.

      There were no moans this time, just what appeared to be a short, intense argument in a language Owen did not understand. Then the woman came out again, so quickly that he had no time to step back. She saw him standing there and smiled.

      The next morning, after breakfast, the waiters arranged some armchairs beneath the palms and the financiers continued their discussion. Owen stayed on the terrace at his breakfast table. After a while, one of the waiters, a young, pleasant-looking man, came up to him.

      ‘You no talking?’ he said in English.

      ‘No.’

      ‘Why no talking?’

      ‘They’re talking about money.’

      The waiter smiled.

      ‘You not got?’

      ‘That’s right,’ said Owen. ‘Not got.’

      The waiter squatted down on his haunches, ready to drift into conversation in the easy way of the Egyptians. The pressure was off the waiters now and he could afford to relax.

      ‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘Not got.’

      ‘Got wife yet?’

      The waiter looked glum.

      ‘Money first,’ he said. ‘Then wife.’

      ‘Same here.’

      That was not quite true. There were other reasons preventing, or perhaps delaying, his and Zeinab’s marriage: the attitude the British Administration would probably take to one of its servants marrying an Egyptian, for a start. But then, Zeinab herself was uncertain. Did she want to marry an Englishman?

      ‘Welshman,’ pleaded Owen.

      As Zeinab was not quite sure about the difference between the two, that made her even more uncertain. She knew that Wales was, or had been, like Egypt, an independent country and that, like Egypt, it had been conquered by the English. But where did that leave Owen? Was he, like so many young Egyptians, a secret Nationalist? But if so, how did he come to be Mamur Zapt? And what would happen when they found out? If Zeinab was doubtful about marrying one of the conquering English, she – ever the realist – was even more doubtful about marrying one of the losing Welsh, particularly, if as seemed to be the case, there was more than an outside chance that the English might garotte him.

      The real obstacle, however, Owen suspected, was that having invested so much willpower in creating a life for herself as an independent woman, which took some doing in Egypt, she hadn’t got quite enough left to take the last step, making an independent marriage.

      But would her father, Nuri, in fact object? He and Owen had always got along well. But getting on well was one thing, marrying a daughter quite another. Pashas like Nuri tended to view marriage as a means of political and financial alliance. It might suit him for the moment to have his daughter close to the Head of the Khedive’s Secret Police but that advantage would be only as temporary as a civil servant’s career. As for financial advantage, Nuri knew only too exactly how little Owen earned. So, yes, it was true what he had said to the waiter: they were in the same boat.

      The waiter jerked his thumb in the direction of the financiers.

      ‘They lot of money,’ he said. ‘Why they want more?’

      ‘That’s the way of rich men,’ said Owen.

      ‘True,’ acknowledged the waiter, still brooding, however. ‘But why they here?’

      ‘Egypt not got,’ said Owen.

      That was even more true. In fact, it was so true that Egypt’s international creditors had felt obliged to set up a commission, the Caisse, to make sure that they were repaid. The British had been installed, or installed themselves, as managers on behalf of the commission, and now it was a good question who really ran the country; the Khedive, Egypt’s nominal ruler, the British Consul-General, whose hand was on all the strings, or the Caisse.

      The waiter was silent.

      ‘Egypt rich country,’ he said after a while, the sweep of his hand taking in the fields with their cotton and sugar cane and fruit. ‘Why not got?’

      ‘Ah, well,’ said Owen. ‘You’ll have to ask the Khedive.’

      The waiter went into the hotel СКАЧАТЬ