Free The Mingrelian Conspiracy by Michael Pearce Page B

confusion, and what with all the shaking and jolting they had received, they had got mixed up. There were bits of men’s names mixed with bits of women’s names. Well, they all began crying out. One would shout, “Who am I?” and the other bit would shout, “you’re not you, you’re me!” So then they all began fighting each other. Well, then the blind man came running along the road and he tripped on the sack and fell right in on top of them—’
    ‘Ho, ho!’ said the big man standing in the doorway. ‘Very good!’
    ‘Selim!’ came a shout from inside.
    ‘Coming!’ called the big man. ‘You old bastard!’ he added sotto voce.
    Owen followed him in.
    ‘Not you again!’ said the café owner, aghast.
    ‘Me again,’ said Owen cheerfully. ‘How are things going?’
    ‘Terribly,’ said the café owner. ‘Your man is useless. He’s big, all right, but he’s got something missing up top. The trouble is, that’s the sort my wife goes for. They’ve only got to be simpletons for her to feel all soft about them.’
    ‘She’d better not feel too soft about this bloke,’ said Owen uneasily.
    ‘That’s just what I’ve told her! Kick the bugger up the backside, I say. That’ll get him moving! Only that’s what I say about all of them and she doesn’t take a blind bit of notice. Here, you idle sod! Fetch some coffee for the effendi! He’s your boss, isn’t he?’ he added more quietly.
    Selim came out of the kitchen looking daggers. He put the coffee before Owen, however, with a flourish.
    ‘Brilliant!’ whispered Owen. ‘You’re doing brilliantly.’
    ‘The next time they beat him up,’ Selim whispered back. ‘I’ll join in and help them!’
    ‘Meanwhile, just put up with him. You’re doing very well, and this is important.’
    ‘He just sits there all day giving orders,’ said Selim. ‘He’s worse than a sergeant.’
    ‘Yes, well, don’t mind him. It won’t be for long. It’s just a question of waiting.’
    ‘I don’t mind waiting,’ said Selim. ‘Not if I’ve got my feet up and a pot of coffee in front of me. But this is not like that. The moment I sit down he’s on to me.’
    ‘There are worse things. Just keep it up, that’s all. Now listen: there’s something you can be doing. Try and find out the name of the gang. Talk to the woman.’
    Selim gave a broad smile.
    ‘I’ll talk to the woman, all right,’ he said.
     
    Owen and Zeinab had been to the opera; in fact, were still at the opera, only, as this was the interval, and intervals were somewhat protracted in Egypt, they were going for a walk round the nearby Ezbekiyeh Gardens. ‘Gardens’ was perhaps a misnomer. In a country where, given water, anything will grow, and gardens were usually a riot of lush tropical vegetation, the Ezbekiyeh remained barren. There were various explanations for this. The most popular was that it was a British plot; or, conversely, testimony to Egyptian incapacity. Whatever the reason, the fact was that it consisted of only a few scrubby trees and some equally scrubby grass, tempting only for fornicating in, which was the reason, no doubt, why the gardens were fenced off with high iron railings and closed after dark.
    What made the gardens fun to walk round was not their inside but their outside. As in the English tabloid newspapers, all human life was there: from the chestnut sellers roasting their chestnuts on the gratings which covered the roots of the young trees which surrounded the gardens—and perhaps that’s why the trees were scrubby—to the fortunetellers, usually Nubian women, telling fortunes by reading sand spread on a cloth. There were pavement stalls (rags and sweets in promiscuous proximity), pavement restaurants (consisting of large trays with stew in the middle and hunks of bread stuck on nails around the edge), barber shops (the barbers sat on the railings while their customers stood patiently in front of them), hat stands (on the railings), whip stands (ditto),