Chapter 11
The kahweh was like any other coffee shop which you might find in the poorer, more traditional quarters. Along its front was a raised stone seat, or mastaba, about three feet high and about the same width. Similar benches ran along the walls of the single room inside. They were the only seats. You sat with your back against the wall and, if you smoked, your pipe on the ground beside you.
In this hot weather most of the customers had brought their water pipes. There was a gourd-shaped bowl on the ground which held the water and the smoke was inhaled through a flexible hose. The whole contraption was quite a thing to carry and if you were sick you employed a servant for that purpose. Most of the men of the kahweh were not rich and carried their own.
Owen and Georgiades stepped down into the room inside. For a moment they stopped to let their eyes grow accustomed to the dark. The only light came through the open front door. In this country the object was to keep the sun out, not let it in.
There was hardly anyone inside. Most of the regulars preferred to sit outside on the exterior mastaba, where they could take the air and chat with the people going past. That suited Owen and he made for an empty corner on the other side of the room.
Cups were brought first, little porcelain ones held inside larger brass ones which were better for holding. The coffee came in a hanging pot, supported from three chains and with charcoal at the bottom. The strong bitter smell filled the room.
Sayeed Abdullah arrived a few minutes later. He was a small, spare man with the hair at his temples beginning to grey. He walked with a limp.
He greeted them in a way you seldom saw now, putting his hands to his brow and ducking his head. He seemed nervous of their proffered hands and shook them hesitantly. Then he sat down on the mastaba beside them, tucking one leg up beneath him. The other, the injured one, he let hang.
He had met Georgiades before and for a while, until the man became used to him, Owen was content to let the two make conversation. Talk was mainly about old times. Sayeed Abdullah had been an orderly at one of the sub-police stations in the Citadel quarter. Georgiades appeared to know it well and they had acquaintances in common, most of whom had now retired. Georgiades asked after them.
At last he came to the point, the point that Sayeed had been expecting.
“And Hassan?”
“He still comes.”
“You see him?” asked Owen.
“Every week,” said Sayeed Abdullah. “He comes round to collect.”
“Collect?” said Owen. “What is it that he is collecting?”
“The subscription,” said Georgiades.
“Subscription? What to? A benefit society or something?”
“You could call it that.”
“In those days, effendi,” Sayeed Abdullah explained, “if you wanted a job with the police, you would go to someone who could arrange it. You paid them money, of course. Usually you did not have money. So you would agree to pay so much a week after you got the job.”
“But surely that was years ago? How is it that Hassan is still collecting? You must have paid the debt off years ago.”
“That is what I said, effendi.”
“And?”
Sayeed pointed to his leg.
“He did that?”
“They did that. Effendi, I still would not have paid, only afterwards, when I was in hospital, they came and said: First you, then your wife, then your sons. So I paid.”
“But all this was long ago. You have left the service, Hassan has left-”
“That is why he collects, effendi. He needs the money, he says.”
“Even though you no longer have the job?”
“I have a pension, effendi. It was given me after-after this.” He touched his leg.
“It must be very small.”
“After I have paid the subscription,” said Sayeed Abdullah, “there is little left.”
“Why have you not told someone?”
Sayeed Abdullah looked at him steadily.
“Who should I speak to, effendi, seeing for whom Hassan worked?”
“It is different now.”
“So they say.”
“It is different now,” said Georgiades.
Sayeed Abdullah shrugged.
“Hassan still comes round,” he said. “And I still have a wife and sons.”
“Are there others like you?” asked Owen.
“I do not ask, effendi. But I think so.”
“And they, too, were treated like this?”
He pointed to Sayeed’s leg.
“After they had seen what happened to me,” said Sayeed Abdullah, “that was not necessary.”
Owen signalled for more coffee. Sayeed Abdullah acknowledged it with the same old-fashioned, traditional bob of the head as before.
“He had other ways, too,” he said. “There was a new man who came to our station. He was just up from the country and had a new wife who was expecting a child. Hassan had a friend, an evil woman who could cast spells. And he said to this man who had come up from the country, if you do not pay, I know someone who will put the evil eye on your wife.”
“And did he pay?”
“No, effendi. He said, what is this nonsense about the evil eye? But the baby died, effendi, and the next time he paid.”
Owen was silent for a while. Then he said: “It is time this was ended.”
“That was what your friend said.” Sayeed Abdullah looked at Georgiades. “He said, too, that you were the man who could end it.”
“I need your help.”
“You want me to speak,” said Sayeed Abdullah. “Yes, I know.”
“And will you?”
“It is easy to ask, effendi. Harder to do, if you have a wife and sons.”
“I shall put Hassan in a place where he will not be able to harm you. And until then I will give you a guard. In fact, I know just the man. For both you and your family.”
Sayeed Abdullah hesitated.
“It is easy for you, effendi. Things happen not to you but to people in the streets.”
“I intend to see that they don’t happen to people in the streets. But for that I need your help.”
Sayeed Abdullah sat for a long time looking down on the ground. Then he raised his eyes.
“I will do it, effendi. Because I know that only in this way can it be ended, effendi, I will do as you ask.”
Owen sat there with him until Georgiades returned with the guard he had in mind. Selim.
He noticed the change in atmosphere as soon as he got back to the Bab-el-Khalk. The bearers, who normally greeted him with backchat, averted their eyes. He went into his office and summoned his orderly.
“What’s up?”
Yussuf considered beating about the bush, then took a look at Owen’s face and decided not to.
“Effendi, you’re in trouble.”
“Why?”
“That snake business. Everyone thinks you pulled a fast one. The Rifa’i don’t like it.”
“What are they complaining about? We tried to use our ordinary snake catcher, didn’t we? And then when we couldn’t find him we tried to use others. We couldn’t find anybody. They want to make it a bit more possible to find their members before they start complaining.”
“Effendi,” said Yussuf desperately, “that’s not the idea.”
“What do you mean, it’s not the idea?”
“It’s the other way round. The Rifa’i want to make it harder to find a snake catcher when you want one. That way they can put their prices up.”
“And that’s what they were doing?”
“Yes, effendi,” said Yussuf sadly, “and you spoiled it.”
“Well, that’s too bad.”
“Yes, effendi, but now everyone’s afraid the Rifa’i will put the snakes back and…and…”
“Yes?”
“Suleiman wants to use the lavatory again.”
Zeinab had been out having her hair done. She frequented a modish salon in the Ismailiya and used it as an opportunity to catch up with the fashionable gossip of the town. Today she was gleeful.
“The Whore of Babylon!” she said. “Samira is most envious.”