The Mamur Zapt and the Men Behind. Michael Pearce

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СКАЧАТЬ rate no one would be able to say he wasn’t talking to Englishmen, Owen thought. The current joke in the bar ran something like this: ‘Have you been to one of the CG’s receptions lately?’—‘Oh no. You see, I’m not an Egyptian.’

      Gorst, the man who had recently replaced Cromer as Consul-General, was deeply unpopular with the expatriate British community. Although he had in fact served in Egypt before and was familiar with the country and its ways, he was something of a new broom, put in by the new Liberal Government in London specifically to liberalize the British regime in Egypt and to improve relations with the Khedive, Egypt’s hereditary ruler.

      Cromer had in fact been the man who had ruled Egypt and for thirty years successive Khedives and their Prime Ministers had been forced to submit to his iron will. His regime had been by no means a bad one. Under him Egypt’s desperate economic problems, which had brought the British to Egypt in the first place to make sure they recovered their loans, had been largely resolved and he had introduced many much-needed reforms.

      But after thirty years the Egyptians were beginning to feel that they would like to solve their problems themselves. The new Liberal Government in London was more sympathetic to nationalism than the previous Conservative Government had been, and Cromer’s heavy-handed approach had not commended itself. One of their first acts had been to replace him.

      Anyone following Cromer would have had a difficult time. Gorst, with his new brief and new ways of doing things, soon ran into trouble. He was thought to be too pliable, too soft, too keen on the Egyptians. Personally, Owen thought he was all right. It was just that, new in the job, he lacked Cromer’s certainty, with the result that scruple and circumspection was easily misinterpreted as weakness.

      As now.

      There was something of a political crisis. The old Government had fallen. With all its faults it had been a good one. Its leader, however, had been a Copt. In a country where the bulk of the population was Muslim, a Christian Prime Minister could be only a temporary phenomenon.

      So Patros had fallen. But who was going to take his place? Among the veteran politicians the jockeying was intense. Factions at court combined and recombined, lobbied and blocked. The Khedive could not make up his mind—had not been able to make up his mind for six weeks now.

      ‘Can’t you get the stupid idiot to get a move on?’ Owen had complained earlier in the evening to one of the Consul-General’s aides.

      ‘We’re trying to. The trouble is we can only suggest. He’s the one who has to actually make the appointment. It’s his big moment and he’s savouring every instant of it.’

      ‘Well, it’s making things bloody difficult.’

      Because as the days went by it wasn’t only the tame politicians at court who began to manœuvre. In the political vacuum created by the interregnum other political forces began to stir.

      For the first time there was an openly Nationalist Party, small yet but growing in support, growing fast enough to alarm the other political groupings, which began to take on a protective nationalist colouring too.

      And beyond them were other groups, less orthodox and less open: fundamentalist groups, bitterly resenting the imposition of a Christian as Prime Minister and determined to prevent it happening again; revolutionary groups eager to throw off hereditary class rule, the rule of the Pashas, as well as the alien rule of the British; the extremist political ‘clubs’ and the secret ‘societies’. Cairo in 1909 was a hotbed for such groups; and in the growing political tension they saw their opportunity.

      Incidents began to occur. Hitherto peaceful demonstrations spilled over into violence. Stones were thrown. Bystanders attacked. Vehicles belonging to foreigners were damaged. There came the occasional report of a shop, usually belonging to a Copt, being broken into and set on fire.

      There was a more sinister development. One or two senior people reported that on their way to and from work they had been followed. Nothing more than that. Just followed. But in the increasingly jumpy atmosphere that was enough.

      Reports of followings flooded in, not just from the British but also from senior Egyptians. In the bar it was muttered that things were getting out of hand. The Consul-General should do something. He was as weak as water. Thank goodness the Army was standing by.

      And now had come the thing Owen had been waiting for and fearing: the first shots.

      ‘It might be nothing to do with it,’ said Garvin. ‘Why would they pick on Fairclough? There are much more obvious targets.’

      ‘They’re usually guarded.’

      ‘Only people like the CG and the Khedive. One or two of the Ministers. You don’t have to go as far down as Fairclough. Any Adviser would do.’

      All the big Ministries had a British ‘Adviser’ at the top of them, looking over the Minister’s shoulder. It was one of the ways in which Cromer had consolidated his power.

      ‘The clubs don’t always think like that. From their point of view any Britisher would do.’

      ‘They’d have to have some reason for choosing him. What reason could there be for choosing Fairclough? Political, that is.’

      ‘Or any other. The nearest I’ve got to a reason so far is enmity at bridge.’

      Garvin laughed and tilted his glass in the direction of a passing waiter. One of the advantages of this being a reception for a European delegation was that alcoholic drinks were being served.

      ‘I don’t think it will be that. And I don’t think it will turn out in the end to be political either. Go on digging and you’ll find something else.’ There was a touch of condescension in Garvin’s voice.

      ‘Even if you’re right on this, you won’t be right for long,’ Owen insisted. ‘Things are hotting up. It’s only a question of time. Can’t we get the Khedive to get a move on?’

      ‘I’ll pass on your views to the CG,’ said Garvin and drifted away.

      Putting Owen in his place.

      The next day as Owen was walking home he had a distinct feeling that he was being followed.

      He told himself that he was a fool, that he was imagining things. But the feeling persisted. He stopped beside a drinking fountain and as the water played into his cupped hands covertly looked behind him. He could see no one. There was only the long, dusty street of the Sharia Masr-el-Atika, completely deserted in the noonday sun. Nevertheless, the feeling persisted.

      It was, actually, not uncommon for Owen to be followed. There would often be someone who wanted to have a word with him, to present a petition, make a complaint or lay information against somebody who was too shy to enter the imposing offices at the Bab el Khalk where Owen worked, preferring to wait until they could approach him in the time-honoured manner of the East, face to face, in public, in space which was common and where neither was at a disadvantage.

      But this was not like that. Anyone like that would walk just a few paces behind so that the great one would become aware of their presence and when he was so minded turn and address them. But there was no comforting shuffle behind him, just the empty street. And yet the feeling that he was being followed burned into his shoulder-blades.

      An old woman was sitting in the dust under the trees, guarding a huge heap of oranges. She was an old friend of Owen’s СКАЧАТЬ