One or two of the cylinders had rolled their way to this side of the street and a man came across picking them up. He took Owen’s from him.
“Women’s wares,” he said, turning it over in his hand dismissively.
An old man, white-galabeahed, white-turbaned and white-bearded, came stumping along the street, supporting himself with a stick. He came to a stop beside Owen.
“A bad business,” he said, gesturing across the road with his stick.
“It’s always a bad business,” said Owen, “when neighbours fall out.”
“Neighbours?” said the old man sharply. “It wasn’t neighbours who did this. Hello, Guptos!” he called across to the shopkeeper. “A bad business, this!”
“Hello, Mohammed!” he said. “A bad business, indeed!” The old man limped across and embraced him.
“There you are!” he said. “A Muslim embraces a Copt! I don’t care who sees me.”
One or two of the spectators looked uneasy.
“Not too much of that, old man,” someone muttered. The old man whirled on them.
“What’s wrong with it, hey? He’s one of us, isn’t he? Been in the Gamaliya twenty years! That’s good enough, isn’t it?”
“Yes, yes. Just don’t overdo it, that’s all.”
“You watch out, Mohammed!” someone called out. “It’ll be your shop next time!”
“Just let them try it!” shouted the old man, waving his stick. “Just let them try it! I’ll soon show them what’s what!”
“It would be at night, you old fool,” said someone. “You’d be too busy showing Leila what’s what!”
There was a general laugh, in which the old man joined, and then, still excited, he was gently persuaded on his way.
“He’s right, though,” someone said. “It ought to count if you’ve lived here twenty years.”
“Yes,” said someone else, “they ought to have picked one of the other Copts.”
Chapter 4
"Hello, Osman,” said Owen. “How is your sister?”
“Sister?” said the orderly. “I haven’t got a sister.”
“That’s funny,” said Owen. “You had one last week.” Osman shook his head.
“Not me,” he said. “You’re thinking of someone else, effendi.”
“I don’t think so. Didn’t you tell Bimbashi McPhee that you had a sister?”
“No, effendi. It was someone else. I’ve never had a sister.”
“The one who was possessed by evil spirits? Who was at the Zzarr?”
Osman swallowed.
“That wasn’t my sister, effendi. That was…my cousin. Yes, my cousin.”
“And was she cured?”
“Oh, yes, effendi, thank you very much. She’s quite better now.”
“Oh good. All the same, these things recur, you know. We’d better take her along to the hospital and get the hakim there to have a look at her.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary, effendi,” said Ocman faintly. “It’s-it’s not worth troubling the mighty hakim.”
“No trouble at all,” said Owen briskly. “I’ll arrange an appointment for her tomorrow. Now, what was her name?”
“Amina,” said the orderly in a whisper. “Yes, Amina. I think.”
“Right. Well, I’ll arrange that and let you know the time.”
“Yes, effendi,” said the orderly, worried.
Owen waited.
“Or perhaps,” he suggested, “you haven’t got a cousin either?”
“Oh, no, effendi,” said Osman hurriedly. “I have a cousin. In fact, several.”
“Make sure,” said Owen, “that it’s the right one who turns up.”
He turned up at the hospital himself to make sure. Osman looked even more worried; indeed, aghast.
He had, however, brought a woman with him, heavily muffled in head veil and face veil and dressed in the usual shapeless black of the poor women of Cairo.
“Greetings, madam,” said Owen cheerfully. “I am sorry to hear about your affliction. But do not worry. The hakim will soon cure you. The treatment may be a bit painful-” The woman gave a twitch.
“-but it won’t last more than a few weeks.”
The hooded figure gave Osman a look.
“Now, I just want to put a few questions to you before you go in to the hakim.”
They would have to be put through Osman, her nearest male relative, but Owen had never yet met an Egyptian woman prepared to stay silent and let the male answer on her behalf. “First, how long have you suffered from this affliction?”
“Six years,” said Osman at random.
“Six years? Are you sure it isn’t five years?”
“Six,” said Osman.
“But you haven’t asked her yet.”
Osman did so now. The woman muttered something back which sounded suspiciously like “How do I know?”
“Perhaps it was five,” said Osman.
“Quite a long time, anyway. So that all the world will know of your affliction. There will be no doubt, then, when I ask people-”
“Ask people?” said Osman.
“Your family-”
Osman nodded but looked grim.
“The local hakim-”
Osman winced. This was going to cost him.
“The neighbours-”
Osman drew a deep breath. Things were getting out of hand.
“How sad that you should be so afflicted!” said Owen sympathetically. “And that all the world should know! And what a price you’ll have to pay,” he said to Osman, “to get any man to take her! I’d be surprised if you could get anyone to marry her at all.” There were signs of stirring beneath the shapeless black. “Never mind,” he said encouragingly, “when everyone knows you’ve been to the English hakim to be cured of not being quite right in the head-”
“Not quite right in the head?” said the woman.
“Permanently afflicted-”
“There’s nothing wrong with my head,” declared the woman firmly.
“Hush, woman!” said Osman unhappily.
“There may be with yours!”
“Don’t let it worry you, Amina,” said Owen.
“Amina?” said the woman.
Back at the Bab-el-Khalk, severely cast down, Osman was ready to confess. None of his female relatives, the mock-Amina-for whom, win or lose, he had committed himself to buying a necklace-least of all, unfortunately, was possessed or weak in the head. There never had been anyone possessed. It was just a story he had made up knowing the Bimbashi’s interest in such things as Zzarrs.
Even that, Owen pointed out, was untrue. He had not made the story up. Someone else had; and given it to him to use to entrap the Bimbashi.
Osman was silent. The worried lines on his forehead, however, indicated that he could see big trouble ahead.
“So who was it who spoke to you, Osman?” asked Owen pleasantly.
Osman took a deep breath.
“Effendi, I do not know.”
“What a pity you do not know!” said Owen. “It could have saved you a lot of distress.”
“A man spoke to me in the suk,” tried Osman bravely.
“Whom you did not know and whom you could not recognize if you saw him again.”
“That’s right, effendi,” said Osman thankfully.
“And out of the goodness of your heart you decided to entrap the Bimbashi?”
“Well, it wasn’t just out of the goodness-” admitted Osman.
“How much did they pay you?”
“One hundred piastres.”
Owen looked at him severely.
“I will give it back, effendi,” said Osman despondently.
“But how will you give it back, Osman, if you don’t know the man and would not recognize him if you saw him?”
“Perhaps I would recognize him,” said Osman, “and I might see him in the suk.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I will do, Osman. You have raised your hand against the Bimbashi and that is a serious offence, for which I am going to send you to work in the gangs mending the levees along the river. However, I shall postpone your departure for a week or two and if meanwhile you should happen to see the man who spoke to you and are able to point him out to me I might be prepared to take things no further. Oh, and, Osman, no one need know that you had pointed him out to me.”