The Spoils of Egypt by Michael Pearce

Author:Michael Pearce
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, Inc.
Published: 2017-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Back in his office, Owen found that little had occurred in his absence. The heat inhibited crime as it did any other kind of activity. The city seemed positively deserted. The poor were asleep and the rich on holiday.

Most well-to-do Cairenes took their families to Alexandria for the summer, where they could enjoy the cool sea breezes of the coast. Many British, including the Consul-General, did likewise. For a month or two it was as if the centre of gravity of Egypt had shifted northwards.

So it was perhaps not surprising that the only thing which seemed to require Owen’s attention should emanate from Alexandria. Fortunately, it was extremely minor: a request from some Italian businessmen to be allowed to erect a statue of Dante in one of the squares.

Owen, glad to be back in Cairo and feeling benign to all the world, even, this morning, the Finance Department, was about to accede to this request when his eye caught a scribbled note in the margin from the Consul-General no less: ‘Suggest you go and see them.’

Well, this was all right, too. A quick trip up to Alexandria, snatch some of the sea breezes, catch a late train back… Perhaps even go to the Opera?

He suggested it to Zeinab.

‘Travelling all day there and all night back? On a train? In this heat?’ She shook her head. ‘Not even to go to the Opera.’

So he went alone, sitting comfortably by himself, watching the green fields and brown earth of the delta go by, with the fellahin stooping in the gadwals and the little boys perched on top of their buffaloes.

Alexandria was noticeably fuller of visitors than it had been even a few days ago, but with its wide streets, open squares and French-style parks and public gardens it seemed easily able to accommodate them all.

It was indeed a European, not an Arab, city. The streets were well laid out, with the houses, in this part of the city, well apart. Broad, open lawns stretched up to sunny walls covered with a blaze of creepers. The gardens were open to the street in front. All was well watered and to Owen’s eye, still adjusting from the harsh glare of the desert, almost stridently green.

His arabeah pulled up outside one of the houses. A short, plump Italian in a dark suit and a red fez rushed out, took both his hands in his and drew him into the house and through into an inner garden.

Two men were sitting at a table drinking lemonade. They jumped up as they saw him and came towards him with effusive Italian warmth.

‘So good of you! So good!’

Their French was better than their English. In Alexandria English took third place to French and Italian. Owen had no Italian, so after a moment or two’s exploring they all shifted naturally into French.

‘You have not been to Italy?’

Owen had to confess that he hadn’t.

‘Ah, you should!’

‘I should, too,’ said one of the men, laughing.

‘You are not…?’ said Owen, surprised.

‘I’m Italian all right,’ the man said, ‘but I’ve never been in Italy.

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