‘But first he wanted her circumcised?’
‘No, no. He didn’t know anything about that. He took it for granted that she was. I took it for granted that she was. Her mother ought to have seen to that. Back at the village. It was only when they were putting the sugar paste on that they found out. Then they came to me fast. She’s not right, they said. Well, then, you’d better make her right, I said. And it was then we got into all this stuff about her being too old and him being too old.’
‘But you went ahead with it?’
‘Well, it would have been off, otherwise, wouldn’t it? Omar Fayoum is not going to want anything that’s not a hundred per cent, is he?’
And now Owen’s ankles were itching. There were almost certainly fleas. They were all three squatting on the floor. There was nowhere else to sit.
‘So it was done?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then it went wrong?’
‘That old bitch! I don’t reckon she knew what she was doing when she did it. And I paid her good money, too! Not all, luckily. Some before, some after. When it came to after, I went to her and said: “You old bitch, you’ve done it wrong. I don’t mind paying good money for a good job, but this isn’t a good job, is it?” So I docked her some. Well, then she set up a great crying and shouting. It wasn’t her fault, she said. She said it was because the girl was too old. But she didn’t say that before, when we were making the deal! “You’ve cost me money,” I said. “Now she’s fit for nothing. She might not even be fit for old Omar when the time comes.’”
‘She was very sick?’
‘Couldn’t lift a finger. Just lay there. “This won’t do,” I said after a while. “You’ve got to pull yourself together, my girl.”’
‘You didn’t call a hakim?’
‘Hakims are for rich people. When you’re poor, you’ve got to get better by yourself.’
‘All the same-’
‘Besides,’ said Ali Khedri, ‘by that time it was too late.’
‘Too late? Why?’
‘Because I’d thrown her out.’
6’tss’t?›
‘Thrown her out?’ said Mahmoud incredulously.
‘Yes. I didn’t have much choice, did I? Not when I found out.’
‘Found out? What did you find out?’
‘About her and this boy. To think that all the time I’d been arranging things with Omar Fayoum, she’d been carrying on with that little bastard! “I love him,” she said. “Love?” I said. “What’s that? How much is that worth? How much does that fetch in the market, then? And how much do spoiled goods fetch? You tell me that! You’ve brought shame and dishonour upon me,” I said.
‘Oh, then she wept and said it had amounted to nothing and it had all come to an end anyway and that she would marry Omar Fayoum if I wished.
‘“Wished?” I said. “What’s that got to do with it? Do you think he’s going to have you now? Or anyone else is, for that matter? You’ve made your bed, my girl, and now you’ve got to lie on it. Only you’re not going to lie on it in my house. Not in the house that you’ve brought disgrace upon!”
‘Well, then she wept and clung to me and begged me to let her stay. She’d work, she said, and find some way of bringing in some money. “I know your sort of work,” I said, “and if you think I’m letting my daughter go out whoring, then you’d better think again, my girl. I may be poor but I’m not that poor. Out on the streets is where you belong and that’s where you’d better go!”’
‘So she went?’ said Mahmoud, tight-lipped and angry.
‘Yes.’
‘And you made no attempt to find out what had happened to her?’
‘I wasn’t going to ask. I thought that maybe she and that boy-But I kept seeing him around, he was always creeping around, and someone told me he was forever asking about her, so I reckoned that couldn’t be it. Then I thought that maybe someone would tell me, but no one did. And then one day I heard about that woman at the Cut, you know, that woman they found buried under The Bride. Well, at first I thought nothing of it, but then-’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, I know some of the gravediggers, you see. And one of them has a brother who works at the mortuary. And he told him that he reckoned the girl that was found was my Leila. How he could tell, I don’t know. From what the man said who’d found her. But it set me wondering. And what I asked myself was, how did she get there? There, of all places? Well, someone must have put her there, mustn’t they? And they must have done it for a purpose. And do you know what I reckon?’
He looked at Owen and Mahmoud almost triumphantly.
‘It was the Jews.’
‘Jews!’
‘Yes. They go in for this sort of thing, don’t they? And then there’s the Cut.’
‘What has the Cut got to do with it?’ demanded Owen.
‘It’s the last one, isn’t it? That makes it a bit special. Well, what I reckon is that they wanted to mark it out, this being the last one, and it being their turn. They take it in turns, you see, them and the gravediggers from the cemetery here. I don’t know that I hold with that, really, but it’s been like that for centuries, they say. Turn and turn about. Well, this time it was their turn and I reckon they wanted to mark it out, this being the last time.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Well, that they put her there. It was the old tradition, you see. Bury a virgin under The Bride. And I reckon they thought that would round it off nicely. They’re great ones for tradition, the Jews. It was probably them who thought of the idea in the first place. Only I don’t hold with that, not with putting a good Muslim girl under the cone. Now if it was a Jewish girl, that might be different-’
‘You think they found your daughter and buried her under The Bride of the Nile?’
‘Not found her.’
‘Not…?’
‘Killed her. The bastards.’
‘She died,’ said Mahmoud, ‘from the effects of poorly performed circumcision. And from neglect and ill treatment afterwards. If anyone killed her, it was you.’
‹5‘«Sk?›
They walked back up the Suk-en-Nahassin past some of the most ancient and beautiful mosques in the world, past the Sultan-en-Nasir, the Sultan Kalaun and El-Hakim, past the fountain house of Abd-er-Rahman and the Sheikh’s house next to the Barkukiya. The past was all about you in Cairo, thought Owen. That was the trouble.
By tacit mutual consent they dropped into a cafe just before they got to the Khan-el-Khalil. Both were feeling depressed.
‘What do I do?’ said Owen. ‘Put him inside until the Cut is over?’
‘The Cut is not the problem,’ said Mahmoud.
‘No,’ agreed Owen sadly.
‹? m?›
Back in the office he said to Nikos:
‘There’s an old man down by the Muslim graveyard. Ali Khedri. A water-carrier. He’s probably harmless but I don’t want him saying things that could cause trouble.’
‘You want him picked up?’
‘No. But I want someone down there keeping an eye on things. Until the Cut is over.’
‘Georgiades?’
‘No. I want him to stay in the gardens. He’ll like that.’
‘What’s he supposed to be doing there?’
‘Talking to the workmen. I want him to find out about Babikr. Where he comes from, where he stays when he’s up here. Who he talks to. Who-more important-talks to him.’
Owen had been invited to a reception at the hospital. The invitation had come from Cairns-Grant, the pathologist, a man with whom Owen had often had dealings and for whom he had a great deal of respect. When he arrived, the reception was in full swing and Cairns-Grant was talking to fellow-countrymen: Macrae and Ferguson.
‘We were talking about the regulator,’ said Ferguson.
‘And I was asking who could do a thing like that,’ said Macrae.
‘And I was saying I could,’ said Cairns-Grant.
‘You could?’ said Owen.
Aye. Half our problems come from the barrages.’
‘That’s not fair!’ protested Macrae.