The Mamur Zapt and the Camel of Destruction

‘That’s right. Eat too much, drink too much–’

‘Drink too much?’ Abdul Latif was shocked. Osman Fingari was, so far as he knew, a strict Moslem.

‘He likes his drop.’

Abdul Latif disapproved of this and felt he should bring the conversation to an end.

‘We can’t leave him there,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

‘It’s not proper,’ said Abdul Latif firmly. ‘Besides, I want to go to the souk.’

‘Then why not go? He can wake himself up, can’t he?’

Unfortunately, this was one thing that Osman Fingari could not do and so it was that the night porter found him still there when he made his rounds at seven o’clock. A cruder individual than Abdul Latif (night porters were paid less than orderlies), and taken by surprise, he said roughly: ‘Here, come on, you can’t do that!’ and shook Osman Fingari by the shoulder.

Whereupon Osman Fingari slid slowly out of his chair and fell to the ground.

‘Nasty thing in one of the offices,’ said Farquahar in the bar the following lunch-time. ‘Chap in Agriculture. Found by the night porter.’

‘Heart attack?’

‘I expect so.’

In the heat of Cairo such things were not unusual and conversation passed to other topics.

Owen, sitting at a table nearby, heard the remark but did not think it worth registering. People were dying all the time in Cairo. Not in Government offices, of course, or something would have had to be done about it. He had, in any case, more important things on his mind.

‘And then the bank manager said to me–’

His companion leaned back wearily.

‘Gareth,’ he said, ‘do you read the newspapers?’

‘Of course I read the papers. Damn it, it’s my job. Part of it,’ he amended.

One of the incidental duties of the Head of Cairo’s Secret Police, the Mamur Zapt, was to read the day’s press. Actually, he read it twice; before publication, to stop undesirable items from getting in, and after publication, to realize, resignedly, that they had.

‘The financial pages?’

‘Well, no.’

They consisted, so far as he could see, entirely of numbers; and on the whole numbers were not considered politically inflammatory.

‘You should.’

‘Cotton prices, contango, that sort of thing? No, thanks.’

‘Take cotton prices, for instance. Nothing interesting about them?’

‘Absolutely nothing,’ said Owen firmly.

‘You have not noticed that they are only half what they were a year ago?’

‘No.’

Cotton was Agriculture’s concern.

‘A half, you say? That’s rather a fall.’

‘It is. And since Egypt depends on cotton, it’s reduced the whole national income. By fifteen per cent.’

‘Hmm. Well, that does seem a lot. But manageable, manageable.’

‘That’s what your bank manager’s doing. Managing it.’

‘Yes, but–’

‘It affects the government finances too, of course. In a big way.’

‘Fifteen per cent?’

‘More.’

‘Well, that is a bit tough. It explains what they’ve been doing to my budget. I thought they were just being bloody-minded as usual.’

‘A thing like this,’ said his companion, who was aide to the Consul-General, ‘gives the bloody-minded their chance. The Old Man’s hospitality allowance has been cut by half. Half! How I’m going to manage that, I don’t know. All these damned visitors! They all expect a free drink, and they measure it in bottles, not glasses.’

‘Another one?’

Owen stood up and picked up Paul’s glass. Paul glanced at his watch.

‘A little one, please. I’ve got a meeting at three.’

Owen stopped, astonished.

‘At three?’

The siesta hour, or two, or three, was normally inviolate.

‘Yes. It’s to do, actually, with the financial pages. Perhaps you should come along.’

‘No, thanks. No-o, thanks.’

On the outside wall of the Governorate was a stout wooden box in which from time immemorial the humble folk of Cairo had deposited petitions, denunciations and information which they wished to bring to the attention of the Mamur Zapt.

The Mamur Zapt was no longer the powerful right-hand man of the Sultan he had been in the seventeenth century – indeed, there was no longer a Sultan – but lots of people did not know that and still insisted on writing to him.