‘I had a house once,’ he said. ‘I had a family, I had a village. And I prayed that the Russians would not come and visit it. But one day they did. And then I had a different prayer. It was that they would come again. Only this time I would be waiting. And I would know what to do!’
He paused for a moment, breathing heavily. His audience was silent, gripped.
‘And now my prayer has been answered,’ he said quietly. ‘The Russian is coming; and I know what to do.’
The strength seemed suddenly to leave his body. He turned away from the rostrum. Friends rushed forward to help him back to his seat.
But meanwhile the crowd had erupted. Everyone was on their feet shouting and waving. There was pandemonium. The front of the crowd surged forwards. Others pushed in behind them. And now, looking round, Owen saw that the square was packed and everywhere, in the torchlight, faces were contorted and crying. Over to one side some men were trying to climb on to the platform and beside them a man in boots had scrambled up some scaffolding and was half turned towards the crowd, shaking his fist and screaming.
And then Owen lost sight of the platform altogether as the crowd around him eddied forward and took him with them and he had to concentrate on keeping his footing.
The man who had opened the meeting was standing up at the rostrum and pleading with the crowd to keep order. Others on the platform had got out of their seats and come forward to the edge from where they were trying to shout to their supporters. There were stewards, but they were helpless as the crowd swirled to and fro about them.
In a way it was fortunate both that the square was small and that the crowd was now so tightly packed as to make it hard to fall. Owen was trying to fight his way forward to the platform but everyone else was trying to do the same. He was afraid that at any moment someone would go down and then within seconds it would be frightful. He levered himself up on someone’s shoulder and began to shout commands; one or two faces turned towards him but in the uproar most of his words were lost.
And then suddenly, by chance, probably, the tumult died down and the chairman was able to make himself heard. He was a doctor or something and had some presence or at least experience of chairing meetings. Gradually he cajoled the meeting back to order.
‘Calm, friends, calm!’ he cried. ‘Let us resume the meeting! There is work to be done!’
From over to one side, the side where the men had climbed on to the platform, he received sudden support.
‘Order! Order! There is work to be done!’ bellowed a loud voice.
‘Let’s get on with it!’ shouted someone near him.
The swirls steadied and the noise dropped.
‘I call on Mr. Karamajoric!’ cried the chairman, and Mr. Karamajoric came forward. The mood of the meeting had changed, however, and no one wanted to listen any more to another litany of grievances. The chairman, realizing this, intervened swiftly and sent Mr. Karamajoric back to his place.
‘Before I close the meeting,’ he shouted, ‘let us agree on what is to be done next. I propose a committee to-’
‘A committee?’ shouted a voice over on the right. ‘What do we need a committee for?’
‘There are too many of us. If a few of us could work something out-’
‘What is there to work out? We know what to do, don’t we?’
‘A petition-’
But his words were drowned.
‘Death to the Grand Duke!’ came the cry.
‘A good meeting, wasn’t it?’ said Sorgos, embracing Owen warmly.
‘If someone had died it wouldn’t have been a good meeting!’
Sorgos’s face clouded over momentarily.
‘No one was hurt, were they? The crowd did seem to get a bit out of hand. But that’s good, isn’t it? You want people to have a bit of life in them. You don’t want them to be dull under oppression. You want them to rise up, to rise up-’
‘It’s all very well rising up over in the Caucasus but this is someone else’s country and you can’t expect them to let you rise up here.’
‘You rise up against oppression,’ said Sorgos, ‘whether it’s there or here. And you rise up against the Russians anywhere you get the chance.’
‘The Khedive would see you as a guest. He has very generously allowed you to live here and when he invites other guests he expects you to treat them with the same generosity.’
‘You wouldn’t treat the Russians with generosity,’ said Sorgos; ‘not if they’d been to your village in Wales!’
‘Those battles are for the Caucasus. We’ve got enough trouble of our own here without your adding to it.’
‘Trouble? What kind of trouble? I have lived here for thirty years and I have not seen any trouble. Not as it is in the Caucasus, anyway. That’s real trouble! Egypt is a peaceful country. Except when your soldiers go out and wreck a cafe. Just exuberance, of course,’ he added conciliatorily.
‘Trouble between Muslim and Christian,’ said Owen sternly. ‘That’s what I’m worried about.’
‘No problem,’ Sorgos assured him. ‘This is strictly between Christian and Christian.’
‘Yes. But it wouldn’t stay that way. Not in Cairo.’
‘They would take our side? Well, that is understandable. They are men of spirit. Fine men! I know them. We fought side by side against the Russians.’
‘Wait a minute; where is this?’
‘Back home in the Caucasus. The Muslims were our allies. Against the Russians. I won’t pretend we always saw eye to eye. There were differences between us. I mean, we had been fighting each other for several centuries. The Muslims were our natural enemy, you might say. But then the Russians came along and they were even more our natural enemy, so we sank our differences and fought side by side. Fine men! And women, too. To tell you the truth’-Sorgos drew Owen to him and whispered in his ear-‘I think Katarina has got a bit of Muslim blood in her. It was always claimed that her grandmother’s father had taken a girl from one of the tribes. A raid, you know. There were plenty in those days. And I think it was sometimes done for the sake of the women-’ Owen piloted him gently out of the square. The old man was still buoyant with excitement and Owen knew that his words were getting nowhere. He would have to talk with him again tomorrow. And with the others. The old man was in many respects the key, however. He seemed to have a bit of a following and they couldn’t all be Mingrelians, either, if what Katarina had said was true, that there were only sixty families left. Perhaps the fact that he was an elder was something to do with it. He was looked to generally for leadership. Or, perhaps, of course, he was being used.
A man came running out of the square after them. He came up to them and threw his arms around Sorgos.
‘I wanted to catch you before you left,’ he said. ‘A wonderful speech! The fire! That’s what was missing until you spoke. I was in despair. And then you came forward-’
‘I spoke as a man should.’
‘They don’t speak like that nowadays.’
‘Then they should!’
‘Oh, yes,’ said the man; ‘they should!’
He saw that Owen was supporting the old man and looked at him enquiringly.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘I’d come with you myself, only-’
‘I’ll see him home,’ said Owen.
The man shook hands with them both and dashed off back into the square. Owen saw that beneath his galabeeyah he was wearing boots.
‘A Mingrelian?’ he asked.
‘Mingrelian?’ said Sorgos, surprised. ‘No, Georgian.’
He seemed suddenly very tired. The excitement had ebbed. He was barely able to stumble along. Owen offered him an arm, which he accepted gratefully. ‘Like a son,’ he murmured. ‘Like a son.’
He recovered briefly when they reached his house.
‘Like a son!’ he roared, as Katarina came running to the door.
‘What?’ said Katarina.
‘He’s been like a son to me,’ said Sorgos, gesturing in Owen’s direction.
‘Well, that’s nice,’ said Katarina.