There was the sound of singing in one of the side streets and then a small procession came into the square carrying cresset torches, long staves with bits of burning wood attached to them, and chanting slogans.
They marched up to the fountain and pushed through the crowd. The men with torches gathered around the base of the fountain. Owen could see now that the water had been turned off. A man began to climb up on to the base.
It was dark now in the square. Only the cafe was lit up. The dome of the mosque was very clear against a deep-blue velvety sky. There was a little group of men standing in front of its doors, the local imam, probably, with some of his helpers.
The men at the fountain held their cressets up to illuminate the speaker on the plinth. He wore a dark suit and a tarboosh. Apart from one or two of the men who had come with him, no one else in the crowd wore a tarboosh. They were all in galabeahs, the long, dress-like costume of the ordinary Cairo working man, and skull caps.
That was how it was, thought Owen. The Nationalist Party drew almost all its strength from office workers and from the professional classes. They hardly touched ordinary working people. There was as big a gulf between them and the ordinary people of Egypt as there was between the ruling Pashas and most educated Egyptians. Egypt was a country divided among itself.
The man on the plinth began to speak. It was the usual Nationalist line. The rich were assailed, foreigners were attacked. But it was a man in a suit who was speaking and the crowd listened for the most part in silence.
Here, though, suddenly, was something different. The speaker began to talk about the railway. Railways were good, he said. It was through railways that a modern Egypt would be built. But why did they have to be built by foreigners? Were there no Egyptians who could build them?
But, pardon him, he had made a mistake. They were built by Egyptians, by people like those he could see before him in the crowd below. It was Egyptian hands that laid the tracks. But was it Egyptian people who got the money? Was it Egyptian mouths that got the bread? No, it was foreign mouths that got the bread. Only it wasn’t bread they wanted, it was cake! With icing on it! The Egyptians did the work but it was the foreigners who benefited.
And it was hard work! His friends down below him could testify to that. It was hard work, back-breaking work. And now they were about to heap more on weary shoulders! Had they not heard about the straw that broke the camel’s back? And this was no straw that they were piling on. No, indeed.
Their hearts went out to their weary brothers. They would not struggle alone. The country was with them. There was action they could take and if they took it, they would find they were not without friends. No, indeed.
But this time the foreigners had overreached themselves. Not content with oppressing their workers, they seemed determined now to offend everyone else. An insult to religion was an insult to all Egyptians. God’s Day was holy; and Egyptians, he said, raising his voice for the benefit of those gathered on the steps in front of the mosque, were determined to keep it holy!
He waited for the cheers, and indeed they came, but not exactly enthusiastically. The little group before the mosque did not join in. If there was a gap between the Nationalists and the ordinary Cairene, there was an even wider gap between the Nationalists and the Church. The Nationalist Party was predominantly secular. They were a modernizing party and modernizing, for many of them, meant sweeping away much of the influence of the Church.
Which the Church knew very well. The imam would have spotted this tactic a mile off. Even so, thought Owen, it might be worth keeping an eye on how successful the tactic was. Ordinary people might be less discriminating than the imam and if the Nationalists could add religious fervour to popular hostility then they could make a lot of trouble.
The orator, as was the way with Arab orators, continued for another hour or two before bringing his final peroration to a close. His friends helped him to climb down. In the light of the cresset torches Owen could see them clearly. As the party prepared to move off, one of the men talking to the speaker turned and Owen saw his face. It was Wahid. Not the Wahid of the railway line, in skull cap and galabeah, and begrimed with sweat, but a Wahid in the sharp, cheap suit and tasselled tarboosh of the smart, young, Nationalist effendi.
‘Satisfied?’ said Salah-el-Din.
Unexpectedly, Owen received a request from Mahmoud to hold the three brothers for a few days longer. He was rather relieved. The brothers had been on his conscience. It was all very well holding them in their own best interests-he was fairly convinced that if they were released Ibrahim’s family would take a pot-shot at them-but it was hard to justify in terms of law. Something must have turned up for Mahmoud to be making this request.
It meant, too, that Mahmoud must still be working on the village end. Owen had feared, from what Mahmoud had said the last time they had met, that he was about to shift his attention entirely to the Syndicate end-if Syndicate end there was.
Cheered by the thought that things were moving, he rang up Mahmoud to say that of course he would continue to hold the brothers if that was what Mahmoud wanted. Mahmoud, caught off guard by the call, tried to remain distant but found it hard when Owen was being so conciliatory.
‘You’re getting somewhere, then?’
‘Yes.’ Mahmoud hesitated. ‘I think so. Do you need grounds for holding?’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
This, from the point of view of keeping his distance, made matters worse for Mahmoud. What made it even more difficult was that Mahmoud himself had doubts about the strict legality of holding the men further. They were being held under powers special to the Mamur Zapt. Mahmoud, on principle, did not believe the Mamur Zapt should have such powers. They were not assigned him in the Legal Code; and for Mahmoud the Code was Bible-or, possibly, Koran.
However, he was rather glad of the powers on this occasion, for he was not at all sure that holding the brothers could be justified by the normal letter of the law.
‘I ought to give you grounds,’ he said determinedly.
‘Fine!’
Mahmoud hesitated.
‘Unfortunately, it is not quite straightforward.’
‘Like to talk to me about it?’
‘That might be a good idea,’ said Mahmoud, relieved. Not all legal considerations, after all, had to be written down.
They met, as usual, on neutral ground, at a cafe halfway between the Ministry of Justice and Owen’s office at the Bab-el-Khalk. It was an Arab cafe and outside it were several little white asses, waiting for their owners. Inside, water-pipes were bubbling. Neither Owen nor Mahmoud, however, were smoking men, Owen from inclination, Mahmoud out of Muslim conviction. Today he felt slightly relieved at his strictness. Any more relaxing of rules would have made him feel very uneasy.
‘Well, what have you found?’ said Owen, sipping his coffee.
‘I need a little more time,’ said Mahmoud, ‘but I think I’ve got it.’
‘Got what?’
‘The connection. You remember,’ he said, ‘that I was looking for a connection with the Syndicate. Well, I think I’ve found it.’
Owen listened with sinking heart. Was Mahmoud still on that tack?
‘I had hoped you had found out something more in the village,’ he said. ‘I mean, if we’re going to justify holding them-’
‘But that’s it,’ said Mahmoud, bending forward earnesdy, ‘that is what I have found. A connection between the brothers and the Syndicate. One of the brothers, Ali, his name is, hangs around at the Helwan racetrack a lot. He’s in with a gang there.’
‘Well, that’s interesting. But what has it got to do with-?’
‘The Syndicate’s building a racetrack out at Heliopolis.’
‘Well?’
‘Gambling’s important to them.’