‘You may think so.’
‘You think so only because it is a foreign company.’
‘What are you saying? What are you saying?’ cried Mahmoud furiously.
‘That you’re letting your Nationalist prejudices run away with you!’ said Owen, equally angry.
It had all boiled up, as so often in Egypt, out of nothing. One moment you had been talking reasonably; the next, there had been an explosion.
All right, this time it was he himself who had sparked it off. But really! How could Mahmoud think a thing like that? How could someone as intelligent, as reasonable as Mahmoud even consider such a possibility? Owen had no great affection for the Syndicate. He thought it was hard and grasping. He thought it very likely that it would if not bend the law, at least push up as hard against it as it could.
But that was not quite the same thing as breaking the law. And it was not the same thing as killing a man, or having him killed, just because he had crossed them.
Or as a warning. Warning? Who to? To the labour force to work harder? Ridiculous! How could Mahmoud even suppose such a thing! It was quite unlike him. He was normally the most reasonable of men: a little prickly on occasion, emotional, perhaps, like most Arabs. But this was plain crazy! Companies were not like that. Not even- pace, Mahmoud-in Egypt. Not even-despite the fulminations of the most lunatic Nationalists-foreign companies in Egypt. How could Mahmoud even entertain the idea?
The telephone rang. It was Mr Rabbiki, the veteran politician.
‘Ah, Captain Owen! So glad you are there. I wanted to let you know before actually putting down the question.’
‘Question?’
‘Yes. In the Assembly. It’s on the agenda for Tuesday. I wanted to give you prior warning. After all, we’re old friends, aren’t we? And I understand the difficult position you’re in. But really, we can’t allow this to go on. The poor fellow’s family-’
‘Poor fellow?’
‘The one who was killed. I understand you are not going to press charges?’
‘It’s not my job to press charges. That’s up to the Parquet.’
‘Ah, yes, but sometimes they need help.’
‘I give them all the help I can.’
‘We-ell…it’s not always possible, is it?’
‘Why not?’
‘Political considerations? Do not sometimes political considerations intervene?’
‘They haven’t intervened in this case.’
‘No? That’s not the impression I have gained.’
‘I don’t follow you, Mr Rabbiki.’
‘The Syndicate, Captain Owen…is it not obstructing inquiries?’
‘Not as far as I’m aware.’
‘I understand Mr El Zaki wishes to put some questions?’
‘He wanted to talk to the workforce. He asked me to approach the Syndicate on his behalf, which I was glad to do. Permission was given, and he spoke to the men. I was there.’
‘Yes, but since then…’
‘I don’t think the issue has arisen since then.’
There was a little silence.
‘Then I am under a false impression, Captain Owen. I had gathered he wished to put some questions about an incident that had happened on the railway some weeks ago.’
‘I know the incident to which you refer. I wasn’t aware that he wanted to approach the Syndicate over the matter.’
‘You weren’t? Well, perhaps there are problems of communication on your side. Or perhaps he didn’t feel it necessary for an officer of the Ministry of Justice to have to direct his inquiries through an intermediary. Be that as it may, his request was refused.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘It is unacceptable, Captain Owen. It raises important questions of principle.’
‘It is regrettable, certainly. And the issue might not have arisen had the request been directed through me.’
‘But that, too, raises questions of principle, Captain Owen. So you will quite see why we are putting down a question.’
Owen could quite see why the Nationalist Party was putting down a question. It wished to embarrass the Administration and a foreign company was a good stick to beat the government with.
He was a little disappointed, though, by Mahmoud. After that last exchange at the well, Mahmoud had stalked off in high dudgeon. This was not uncommon with Mahmoud, and usually after a decent interval had elapsed he stalked back again. This time, however, he had made no effort to contact Owen. Instead, he had approached the Syndicate head-on and received the rebuff he must have expected.
Why had he done that? Owen could see why this time he had not wished to enlist his own aid. Apart from understandable pique, he, too, had principles. But why had he gone at it like that? He was no fool, he was wise in the games that Cairo played, he must have known he would get nowhere.
Unless, of course, that was where he had wanted to get. Unless that had been his deliberate intention. Unless he had been party to the Nationalists’ decision to exploit the issue for political ends and had seen this, with them, as a heaven-sent opportunity to set the Syndicate up.
Mahmoud was, like all the other Parquet lawyers, himself a Nationalist. Unlike most of them, however, he was also his own man. He made it a matter of principle not to get into politicians’ pockets. The law for him was clean and pure and should be above politics. Those who professed it should serve it with independence and austerity. Friends said of him-increasingly-that he was a born judge but too honest to be an advocate. Especially in Cairo.
Owen was surprised, then, to find that in this instance he seemed to have shifted; surprised, and disappointed. He and Mahmoud had always seen eye to eye, in so far as it was possible for a foreigner to see eye to eye with an Egyptian. But it was precisely that which was raising the difficulty in the present case. For it was surely only the fact that it was foreign that had led Mahmoud to make his extraordinary accusations against the Syndicate.
It was most unlike him. Certainly, like most Nationalists and, indeed, most Egyptians, he chafed at his country’s subservience to foreign interests and objected, in particular, to British rule; but up till now he had always been temperate and pragmatic about this, believing that Reason-Mahmoud was a great man for Reason-and the ordinary political processes would in the end deliver Egypt from its foreign yoke. The sanguinary rhetoric of the extremists was not for him.
And yet here he was supposing things about the Belgians which would not have been out of place sixty years before at the court of Muhammed Ali! Muhammed’s daughter, taking after her father, had been in the habit of having slave girls who had fallen asleep on duty disembowelled in her bedroom.
It was most unlike him. So unlike him that Owen began to wonder.
Salah-el-Din took Owen to a little square not far from the Pont de Limoun. There was a fountain in the square and a small crowd had gathered in front of it. Among them, Owen could see the railway workers. They stood in a group, huddled together sheepishly, occasionally casting a longing look over their shoulders at a small cafe on the other side of the square, as if they would rather have been there than here and as if they might have been tempted to make a bolt for it had they not been hemmed in.
It was a hot evening and most of the little houses in the square had their front doors open. From the yards at the back came drifting the smell of charcoal and burning cooking fat, and then a very pungent smell of fried onions.
One or two of the households had already finished their evening meal and had come out to sit on their doorsteps, trying to catch a breath of cooler air. They called across to the men sitting on the big stone bench, the mastaba, that ran along the front of the cafe. Other men were sitting on the ground in front of them. Mixed with the smell of charcoal and fat came now a strong smell of coffee.
Darkness fell quickly at this time of year. Already people in the crowd were lighting torches. On the side of the square opposite the cafe the dome of a mosque was beginning to show against the sky.