The Mamur Zapt and the Camel of Destruction

‘No,’ she said. ‘I should have tried harder. I became impatient. When he came home–’ She broke off.

‘When he came home–?’

‘Sometimes he had been drinking. Oh, it’s not such a great fault, I see that now; but it was so different, so – so unexpected. He had always been – he had always behaved properly–’

‘He was a strict Moslem?’

‘Not strict, but – but he did what he should. Until–’

‘Recently?’

‘Yes.’

‘You saw a change in him?’

‘Yes.’

‘What sort of change, Miss Fingari?’

‘He became – not disorderly, but not so ordered. He would come home late. He never used to do that. Now he did it often. He wouldn’t say where he had been–’

‘You asked him?’

‘Yes. We were close. We had been close. He would talk to me when he wouldn’t – He didn’t always feel he could – talk to my parents.’

‘What did he talk about, Miss Fingari?’

‘Oh, nothing much. This goes back a long time. To when he was at school. If something had gone wrong during the day, if someone had been unkind to him, he would run home and pour it all out to me. I was his big sister and – and I remained so even after he started work.’

‘He still talked to you?’

‘Yes. Perhaps even more so. Our parents were growing older. They did not always understand the sort of things he was doing at work–’

‘But you did?’

‘No!’ She laughed. ‘How could I? A woman? Shut up in the house all day. All I knew was the family and the souk. But I had friends, other girls, and they talked about their brothers and I – I learned something, I suppose. Anyway, he felt he could talk to me.’

‘And then he stopped talking to you? When was this?’

‘It was not – not suddenly, not like that. It just – built up over time.’

‘But when did it start? When did you first become aware that you could not talk to him as you used to?’

‘I – I don’t know. Recently. The last few months.’

‘Since he joined the Board?’

‘No. Yes, I suppose,’ she said, surprised. ‘But, effendi, he was not like that. It was not because he became proud. Oh, he was proud of being appointed to the Board, he was very proud of it – and so were we all – but it wasn’t – that wasn’t the reason.’

‘He did change, though?’

‘Not because of that.’

‘Why are you so sure?’

‘Because I know him. And – and because he did talk to me about that, about the people he met – they were very famous people, effendi, even I had heard of them – about the places he used to go to. No, it was not that, it was – afterwards.’

‘Afterwards?’

‘About the time he started coming home later.’

‘That was some time after he had joined the Board?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you any idea, Miss Fingari, why that was? Why did he start coming home late?’

‘He – he was meeting someone. I – I thought it was a woman and teased him. But it wasn’t. He said it wasn’t. And then–’

‘Yes?’

‘That was when he started to come home smelling of drink. I knew then that it was not a woman, that it was someone who was bad for him. I was angry with him, I told him he must not see them, but he said – he said he had to see them–’

‘Had to?’

‘Yes. He said it was business and I said what sort of business was it if it was in the evening and he came home smelling of drink after it and he became angry and said I did not understand. And after that he would not speak with me.’

She began to sob.

‘If I had not been so fierce, perhaps he would have spoken to me. Perhaps I would have been able to help him, save him–’

‘You must not blame yourself, Miss Fingari.’

‘But I do blame myself!’ she said, sobbing. ‘I do blame myself. You were right when you spoke of him being alone. He was alone, and he would not have been if I–’

‘You did what you could, Miss Fingari.’

‘No, not what I could!’

There was a little spasm of sobbing in the shadows. He moved towards her uncertainly, intending to comfort her, but then she stepped forward herself and seized him by the arms.

‘But if I am to blame,’ she hissed, ‘so are they! They brought him to this! You said there was something outside himself. Someone. There was!’

‘Miss Fingari, these may just have been friends–’

‘No. He was different after he had been with them. He began to be different all the time. There was a change, oh yes, there was a change!’

‘You said he was more lax in his behaviour–’