The mouth of the crocodi.., p.24
The Mouth of the Crocodile, page 24
One or two people looked up.
‘Him!’ said Jamie, pointing.
A man in the crowd began to move away.
‘Him!’ said Jamie, going up to him and pointing again.
The man turned on him and caught hold of him.
‘Help!’ said Jamie.
And then, suddenly, a lot of things seemed to be happening at once.
The man let go of Jamie and tried to push away through the mess of milling people. But then a large, fat chap, a Greek, caught hold of him and held him. The Greek looked rather flabby and slobby but must have been very strong because he held the red-eyed man as if he were an infant.
And then there were the Mamur Zapt and Crockhart-Mackenzie pushing through the crowd towards them and Crockhart-Mackenzie produced some handcuffs and put them on the man the Greek was holding. He seemed to have him in some sort of policeman’s lock, because the man couldn’t do a thing.
They went back to the house and told Mrs Nicholson about it. Leila was still asleep in one of the beds under the orange tree. Mr Nicholson had gone off to his office hours ago.
‘I hope no one was hurt!’ said Jamie’s mother.
‘I hope they were hurt!’ said Jamie, still shaken.
‘God be with us!’ said Aisha, who didn’t often use Muslim expressions. Still, this was a special occasion. And, if the truth be told, she was a little shaken, too.
Mrs Nicholson was just putting the grapefruit on the table outside on the veranda. They always had breakfast outside and that included Bella, who had a bowl of watered chocolate under the table.
‘Where were you?’ Jamie said to her severely, ‘When you were needed?’
Leila emerged from under the oranges and had to be told everything. She hadn’t got her burka on and put her finger nervously to her mouth.
Mr Nicholson appeared. He went in to work very early and then came home for breakfast. Then he would go back to the office. There was a lot to tell him and he was very interested.
‘So you were right, after all, Jamie, about the red-eyed man!’
Leila slipped her hand nervously into Mr Nicholson’s and didn’t remove it until breakfast was over, which both Jamie and Aisha thought was really feeble. To be a Pasha’s mistress and yet need to hold a grown-up’s hand!
‘She is very young,’ Mrs Nicholson defended her later.
‘Aisha’s not much younger and yet she—’ began Jamie.
‘Actually, I am quite old,’ said Aisha, looking daggers at Jamie.
‘I thought it was pretty good of that Greek chap,’ said Jamie. ‘I wonder if he would teach me how to put a lock on people?’
The Young Croc was sitting in his usual place on the engine foot plate when Owen and Crockhart-Mackenzie walked across. He looked up when he saw Owen.
‘I thought you would be coming soon,’ he said.
Owen went to squat on the sand in front of him but the Young Croc made room beside him on the footplate.
‘I have taken Lukudu,’ said Owen.
Selim nodded. ‘It was bound to happen,’ he said. ‘But I am sorry.’
‘It was the English boy who identified him,’ said Owen. ‘On the river bank. Where he had gone to wash. He had attacked the English boy there in the past. Before he attacked Sayyid, I think.’
‘I did not know that,’ said the Young Croc.
‘It didn’t seem a serious attack,’ said Owen. ‘It could even have been an accident. A push in the crowd. But the boy knew it was meant. Why was that, do you think? The boy was just a boy. Lukudu didn’t know him. There was no reason for him to push him like that.’
‘What is a push?’ asked the Young Croc.
‘Nothing. Except when it occurs on the river bank, near where the bank slopes down sharply, and where you would drown if you couldn’t swim. Why should he suddenly pick on an innocent boy?’
‘He wasn’t innocent. He was English.’
Owen looked at him. ‘You don’t believe that, do you?’
‘No. But it is an argument.’
‘A child?’ said Owen.
Selim said nothing for a moment. Then: ‘It is not good. I know. I just give the argument.’
‘I find it hard to understand, you see. The rest, I can understand. Even the attack on the train, which might have led to someone’s death. But the random attack on the boy?’
The Young Croc was silent again. Then he said: ‘Sometimes you are walking along beside the river and you come upon a piece of wood. You think it is a log. And then it opens its jaws and seizes you. It is not a log but a crocodile. It is not looking out to kill you; you are just the one who passed by. It was like that with Lukudu and the boy. Lukudu is full of anger and sometimes it bursts out. He did not mean anything by his attack on the boy.’
‘Why is he full of anger?’
‘Because his master had lain in the long grass while the English hunted for him with bayonets.’
‘I understand the grudge, but it is a long time to bear it.’
‘Our family lost fifteen men.’
‘A long time ago.’
Selim shrugged.
‘The pain lasts for a long time.’
‘And you, do you still feel the pain?’
‘Mine is a larger pain. It is the pain of seeing my country under the heel of the British.’
‘You were not yet born.’
‘My father was. He was a baby when my grandmother went looking for her husband’s body after the battle. He was taught to remember, and the memory was passed on to me. As I say, my pain is wider. But the sting came from there.’
‘And Lukudu still feels the sting? After so many years?’
Selim hesitated. ‘The whole family feels the sting,’ he said. ‘Even after so many years.’
‘But only in Lukudu’s case does it come out?’
‘It comes out in all our cases. But in different ways.’
‘It is a general sting. Why should it lead to Sayyid’s death?’
‘It is a general sting and a general war which we are all fighting. And Lukudu and Sayyid are part of it.’
‘No,’ said Owen.
‘No?’
‘There is a more particular reason for Sayyid’s killing.’
Selim did not say anything for quite a time. Then he said: ‘Sayyid did not agree with all the moves in the battle. We were afraid he would betray us.’
Owen sat thinking for a while. ‘It is usual not to agree with all the moves in a battle. I speak as someone who has fought battles. Not in the Sudan but in India. And I certainly did not agree with everything that my superiors did.’
Selim looked at him, surprised. ‘You were a soldier?’
‘Yes. In India. Before I came to Egypt.’
‘Why did you come to Egypt?’
‘Because I did not agree with those above me.’
The Young Croc shook his head and laughed incredulously. ‘Mamur Zapt,’ he said, ‘you and I must do some talking!’
‘And so we shall. Although it will be difficult, with you in prison here and me in Cairo.’
The Young Croc stood up. ‘You are about to take me to prison?’ he said and smiled. ‘For being an enemy?’
Now it was Owen’s turn to shake his head. ‘For Sayyid’s murder. And I am not sure you did it.’
Selim was taken aback. ‘Lukudu was just the tool. I gave the order.’
‘But did you?’
After the Young Croc had been taken away by Crockhart-Mackenzie, Owen went back to the Nicholsons. He had hardly got there, and was having a cup of tea on the verandah with Mrs Nicholson, when they heard hurried footsteps in the yard, and a man came running.
‘Effendi! Mamur Zapt!’
Owen put down his cup.
‘Yes?’
‘You have taken Selim to the caracol.’
‘I have, yes.’
‘You are to wait.’
‘Who says?’
‘My master.’
‘Who is your master?’
‘He will be here. He cannot come as fast as I.’
‘Better sit down and have another cuppa, Gareth!’ said Mrs Nicholson, picking up the tea pot.
A surprisingly short time after, a very old, frail man came up to the verandah.
‘You are the Mamur Zapt!’ he said to Owen.
‘I am, and you?’
‘Selim’s grandfather.’
‘Ah! The Old Croc! So I am told they call you.’
The old man smiled. ‘I bite still,’ he said.
‘Will you sit down, Sheikh?’ asked Mrs Nicholson, giving him the courtesy title.
The old man disregarded the chair she offered him and sat down on the steps leading up to the veranda.
‘What he said was not true,’ the old man said.
‘You do not know, Father, what he said,’ Owen pointed out.
‘I am not stupid,’ said the old man. ‘I know what he said. He said that he was the man who killed Sayyid.’
‘He did say that, yes.’
‘I killed him.’
‘Forgive me, Father, but I know you didn’t. I have spoken to a man who saw the killing.’
‘I gave the order.’
‘And why did you give the order?’
‘Because they are all too weak. Sayyid had to die because he had betrayed us.’
‘He might have been going to, but he hadn’t yet.’
The old man made a gesture of dismissal. ‘He would have. It is the same thing. Once the face turns from you, it had turned. And then you have to act fast. Otherwise, all is told.’
Owen nodded. ‘And so you bade Lukudu to kill him?’
‘Lukudu is a good servant. But,’ said the old man, looking at Owen sharply, ‘he is a servant no more. I am the master.’
‘And not Selim?’
‘Not Selim, no.’
‘He feels as you do.’
‘He feels as I do. But as yet he lacks the cutting edge.’
‘It may be that it is a different cutting edge that he seeks to apply.’
The old man snorted. ‘Delay too long and the edge burns blunt.’
‘Act too quickly and you cut the wrong man.’
The old man looked at him sharply. ‘Sayyid was not the wrong man.’
‘That is not what the wife thinks.’
The old man snorted again. ‘Women!’ he said dismissively.
FOURTEEN
After breakfast Mrs Nicholson needed someone to go down to Tsakatellis’s. The cook had already gone out to the market so she asked, as she normally did, Jamie to go down for her instead. Jamie liked Tsakatellis’s. It was cool and full of interesting smells from the dried fruit, the dates, the pickles and exotic Greek foodstuffs. He was quite happy to go down and he took Aisha and Leila with him. Leila, full of guilt after running away from the Pasha’s house in Cairo, insisted on wearing her burka. Jamie had got used to her now and barely noticed. Aisha didn’t approve but this morning, after hearing that her father had been one of those taken into custody, was lying low and was unusually silent. Jamie had intended to take Bella for her usual walk along the river bank but his mother for some reason jumped on him particularly ferociously and wouldn’t hear of it. So Tsakatellis’s seemed a good idea.
Georgiades, mission completed, was sitting outside the shop having a cup of coffee. He beamed when he saw the children (he considered Leila a child, and wasn’t far wrong). They reminded him of what he would find when he returned to his own house the next day. Jamie, having delivered his mother’s order, and encouraged by the beam, sidled up to the table where Georgiades was sitting.
‘That was a pretty good arm-lock you did yesterday,’ he said. ‘Could you show me how to do it?’
‘Sure!’ said Georgiades, and got down to showing Jamie, while the onlookers at the other tables watched admiringly. Aisha, used to the big Cairo shops, had hardly been in a small grocer like this before, and poked around interestedly. Leila tried to make herself even more invisible by standing behind a crate of empty bottles.
The telephone rang in one of the back rooms and Tsakatellis went to answer it. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Up twenty-five per cent? Sell? Is that a good idea, do you think? I mean, twenty-five per cent, in less than a week … All right, all right, you know best, Chief. I just thought the twenty-five per cent, well, you know. Thirty per cent if I shift them quickly? Well, you know the Cairo markets … all right, all right, I’ll do it this afternoon. This morning? If you say so, Rosa …’
‘It’s my wife,’ Georgiades said to Jamie. ‘She’s doing it again!’
‘And while you’re doing it …’ said the voice on the phone.
‘Hold on!’ said Tsakatellis. ‘Get me a pencil.’
The voice at the other end of the phone called out, speedily, a list of numbers. ‘Molasses, fifteen per cent, grain eighteen, garlic twenty-six, sesame seed …’
‘Just a minute, just a minute!’ said Tsakatellis.
‘Salt up thirty per cent, saffron fifteen …’
‘Hold on, hold on. Not so fast!’
‘Look, it’s changing all the time, you’ve got to keep up.’
‘I’m doing my best, but—’
‘Let me do it,’ said Aisha.
‘Cooking oil twenty; chillies fourteen …’
‘You want me to mark up all those, Rosa?’
‘Yes. There’s a strike pending in the docks.’
‘But, Rosa, I won’t sell anything!’
‘You will. There’s going to be a shortage of everything.’
‘But what if I sell out?’
‘Cover yourself by buying forward.’
‘What?’
‘Put in orders for everything you are likely to sell. Delivery in three weeks. The strike will be over by then and they’d have to deliver at the old price.’
‘But, Rosa …’
‘Once she’s got the bit between her teeth,’ said Georgiades, ‘there’s no stopping her!’
‘You shut up!’ said the voice on the other end of the phone. ‘Where was I?’
‘Chillies,’ said Aisha.
‘Thank you.’ Pause. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Aisha.’
‘Oh. I know. My husband was telling me about you. You’re quite bright, the Mamur Zapt says.’
‘Does he?’ said Aisha, pleased.
Tsakatellis came over to the table, mopping his brow. ‘It’s a bit fast for me,’ he said to Georgiades.
‘It’s a bit fast for everyone,’ said Georgiades. ‘That’s how she does it!’
‘And put in an order, now, for tomatoes. Two hundred kilos,’ said the voice on the phone.
‘Two hundred? Isn’t that a mistake?’
‘No. The price will double by next week.’
‘I think – I think – I am as far in as I want to go,’ said the fainting shopkeeper.
‘Dead right!’ said Georgiades. ‘Get out while you can!’
‘Well, all right, but you’re missing out on fifty. Gum arabic—’
‘Gum arabic? But I don’t sell gum arabic!’
‘Yes, but if you did, you could double your money.’
‘But I haven’t got any gum arabic!’
‘That’s not the point,’ said Aisha in a moment of sudden illumination. ‘You don’t actually have to have the gum arabic if you’ve covered yourself by buying forward.’
‘At least there’s someone down there who’s got a grasp!’ said Rosa. ‘What did you say your name was? Oh, I remember: Aisha.’
Aisha grabbed the telephone.
‘Rosa, can I have a word with you?’
In all his years of dealing with court cases, Crockhart-Mackenzie had never seen anything like it. Three defendants, and all of them pleaded guilty! But two of them had been nowhere near when the crime took place. And the third, on learning that he hadn’t done it, became so confused that after a moment he gave up and lapsed into silence. The Young Croc said that he hadn’t done it, and hadn’t agreed with it, but nevertheless accepted the responsibility. And the Old Croc said that he agreed with it one hundred per cent and had, indeed, ordered it, so the responsibility was his!
The bewildered young judge, fresh from England, looked around desperately for help.
Fortunately, the Mamur Zapt was standing right beside him.
All three, he said, were plainly guilty. But Lukudu, the Shilluk, the one who had actually committed the crime, had done so under instruction from someone he was bound to by an oath of allegiance, so under Sudan custom was not fully responsible. Although murder was a capital crime, there was a case for a reduced sentence. He suggested ten years, with the additional proviso that the Croc family should pay compensation to the Sayyids and undertake to pay for the raising of Sayyid’s son. The Old Croc was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment, which was suspended, however, in view of his years, provided that his family agreed to keep him indoors and pay no heed to his instructions in future.
This last point was the sticking one for the Croc family but the impasse was resolved by the Young Croc, who seized the leadership of the family and undertook to see that the provisions were carried out. From his prison cell. The Mamur Zapt assured the bewildered young judge that this was actually, in the Sudan, a stronger guarantee than any the government could provide.
The Young Croc himself received a reduced prison sentence and was obliged to give certain undertakings, which he did unwillingly after negotiation with the Mamur Zapt, but adhered to them scrupulously, was re-employed after serving his time by the Sudan Railways, and thereafter rose speedily to major positions of responsibility.
Since her father was otherwise engaged and her mother was recovering from the shock of it all in Alexandria, Aisha stayed on at the Nicholson house in Atbara, from where she could visit her father every day and have a conversation with him which was, in her view, acceptably fruitful. In between she helped Tsakatellis in his shop. With Rosa’s distant guidance, and Aisha’s mathematical and growing administrative skills, Tsakatellis’s business boomed.
There came a time, however, when Aisha’s mother had recovered sufficiently to make the long journey down to Atbara, where she collected her daughter and took her back, protesting, to Cairo and school. No Paris, then, this year, nor for several years to come!
Yasin served a short prison sentence. After a little while, with the Mamur Zapt’s discreet, behind-the-scenes guidance, he was able to exchange to a prison in Cairo. Aisha then encouraged her mother to go back to Alexandria, while she stayed in Cairo, nominally under the supervision of her father but actually supervising him.
