The Snake-Catcher’s Daughter. Michael Pearce

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СКАЧАТЬ effendi,’ he said. ‘Certainly, effendi. At once!’

      He hurried off.

      ‘Some men have all the luck,’ said one of the other constables.

      ‘Get on with it!’ barked Owen crossly.

      Selim took a long time, unsurprisingly; so long, in fact, that Owen went to look for him. He met him just as he was emerging from the Gamaliya. He seemed, however, rather disappointed.

      ‘Effendi,’ he said, ‘this is not much of a place. Why don’t you come with me to the Ezbekiya –’

      ‘Have you found the place?’

      ‘Well, yes, but –’

      ‘OK. Just take me there.’

      ‘What’s this?’ he heard one constable say to another as they left. ‘A threesome?’

      Behind an onion stall, in a small, dark, dirty street, a door opened into a room below ground level. In the darkness Owen could just make out a woman on a bed.

      ‘Ya Fatima!’ called the constable.

      The woman rose from the bed, with difficulty, and waddled across to the door. She was hugely, grotesquely fat and her hands, feet and face were heavily dyed with henna. Her hair was greased with something rancid which he could smell even from outside the door. Eccentric though McPhee was –

      ‘Would the Effendi like to come in?’

      ‘This will do.’

      ‘It would be better if you came in, effendi.’

      The constable watched, grinning.

      ‘This is the police,’ said Owen sternly, eager for once to assert his status.

      The woman’s smile vanished.

      ‘Again?’ she said angrily. ‘They had me over there on Monday!’

      ‘This is a different matter,’ he said hastily. ‘I want to know the men you were with last night and the night before.’

      ‘Ali, Abdul, Ahmed –’

      The list went on.

      ‘No Effendis?’

      ‘No Effendi,’ she said coyly. ‘Not yet.’

      All right, it had been a mistake. McPhee probably didn’t know what a brothel was. But what, then, had Ibrahim meant by ‘bad women’? And why was this a place where one didn’t linger? Why had McPhee come here in the first place? And where was the poor devil now?

      That question, at least, was soon answered. Urgent shouts came from the Gamaliya and people came running to fetch him. They led him into a little street not far from the bad woman’s and then up a tiny alleyway into what looked like a carpenter’s yard. Planks were propped against the walls and on the ground were some unfinished fretted woodwork screens for the meshrebiya windows characteristic of old Cairo. He was dragged across the yard to what looked like an old-fashioned stone cistern with sides about five feet high. A mass of people were gathered around it, all peering down into its inside. Someone was pulled aside and Owen pushed through. He clung to the edge of the cistern and looked down. McPhee was lying at the bottom. Something else, too. The cistern was full of snakes.

      Owen shouted for his constables. They came, big men, forcing their way through the crowd.

      ‘Get them out of the way!’ said Owen. ‘Clear a space.’

      The constables linked arms, bowed down and charged the crowd with their heads. They were used to this kind of situation. The smallest accident draws a crowd in Cairo, all sympathetic, all involved and all in the way.

      A couple of constables stayed out of the cordon, drew their truncheons and slapped any encroachment of hand, foot or head.

      Owen levered himself up on to the edge of the cistern and put his head down into its depths.

      ‘Effendi!’ said an anxious voice. It was Selim, who, previously singled out for glory, had suddenly grown in stature and now took upon himself a senior role.

      ‘Get hold of me!’

      He felt Selim’s grasp tighten and swung himself lower.

      The snakes did not move. One or two were lying on McPhee’s chest, others coiled beneath his armpits. They all seemed asleep at the moment, perhaps they were digesting a meal, but if he tried to move McPhee he was bound to waken them.

      ‘Effendi,’ said Selim, ‘is this not something better left to experts?’

      A voice at the back of the crowd shouted: ‘Abu! Fetch Abu!’

      ‘Pull me up!’

      He came back up over the side and lowered his feet to the ground.

      ‘I’ve got to get him out,’ he said. ‘Now listen carefully. Two of you, no three, it will be a heavy weight, catch hold of me. I’m going to reach down and get hold of McPhee. I’ll try and get a good grip –’

      ‘They’ll bite you in the face, effendi!’

      Owen swallowed.

      ‘I’m going to do it quickly,’ he said. ‘Very quickly. As soon as I shout, pull me up. I’ll be heavy because I’ll be holding McPhee. But you just bloody pull, as fast as you can. The rest of you can help. And Selim!’

      ‘Yes, effendi?’

      ‘There’ll be snakes on him. Maybe on me, too. Now, what I want you to do is to catch hold of them –’

      ‘Catch hold?’ said Selim faintly.

      ‘And throw them back.’

      ‘Look, effendi,’ began Selim, less sure now about the glory.

      ‘Do it quickly and you’ll be all right.’

      ‘Effendi –’

      ‘I’m relying on you.’

      Selim swallowed.

      ‘Effendi,’ he said heroically, ‘I will do it.’

      ‘Good man. Remember, speed is the thing.’

      ‘Effendi,’ said Selim, ‘you cannot believe how quick I will be.’

      ‘Right.’ Owen put his hands on the edge of the cistern and braced himself. ‘Get hold of me.’

      In the background, he heard Selim say to one of the constables:

      ‘Abdul, you stand by me with your truncheon!’

      ‘If I strike, it will make them angry.’

      ‘If you strike, you’ve got to strike them СКАЧАТЬ