The Mamur Zapt and the Return of the Carpet by Michael Pearce Page A

I am so sorry. I did not think for one moment that you knew Arabic,
still less the correct Arabic abuse. We are all very sorry. Please come and
join us for some coffee and let us try and convince you that we are not as
boorish as we appear.”
    Two
contrite young men looked at him pleadingly. Owen could not resist and went
back with them to the table where a space was quickly made for him.
    The
rest of the café looked on with approval, having enjoyed, in typical Arab
fashion, both the abuse and the courtesy.
    The
men apologized. They were, they explained, filling in time before going to a
party. They had been talking politics and one of their number had been carried away. It was not said, but Owen guessed, that the topics had
included the British in Egypt. The conversation turned tactfully in another
direction.
    They
inquired how Owen came by his Arabic and when he mentioned his teacher it
turned out that two of them knew him. This reassured Owen, for the Aalim was
not one to waste his time with fools.
    Indeed,
they were far from fools. They were all journalists, it appeared, working for the most part on arts pages. One of them was
introduced as a playwright.
    Owen
said he had been to the Arab theatre but found the plays excessively
melodramatic.
    “That’s
us,” said one of the men. “All Arabs are melodramatic.”
    “No,
it’s not,” said the playwright. “We’re dramatic. It’s the plays that are
melodramatic. They’re just bad.”
    “Perhaps
you will improve the standard,” said Owen.
    “Gamal’s
latest play is good,” one of the men said.
    “Is
it on somewhere? Can I see it?”
    They
all roared with laughter.
    “Alas,
no!” said Gamal. “But when it is put on I shall send you a special invitation.”
    Owen
said he had just been to the opera. They asked him how it compared with opera
in Europe. He was obliged to admit that the only opera he had seen had been in
Egypt. Two of the journalists had seen opera in Paris. They thought Cairo opera
provincial.
    The
conversation ran on merrily. Some time later Owen glanced at his watch. It was
well past two. Opera finished late in Cairo; parties started even later,
evidently.
    The thought occurred to one or two of the
others and they rose to go. Owen got up, too, and began to say his farewells.
His acquaintances were aghast that he should be leaving them so early. They
insisted that he came to the party with them.
    Owen was taking this to be mere Arab
politeness when the playwright linked his arm in Owen’s and began to urge him
determinedly along the street.
    “A little while,” he coaxed, “just a little,
little while.”
    “We want you to meet our friends,” they
said.
    The house was a traditional Mameluke house.
It went up in tiers. The first tier was just a high blank wall with a decorated
archway entrance. Above this a row of corbels allowed the first floor to
project a couple of feet over the street, in the manner of sixteenth-century
houses in England. And above this again a triple row of
oriels carried out into the street a further two feet. There was no
glass, of course, but all the windows were heavily screened with fine
traditional woodwork.
    Through the archway was a courtyard with a
fountain and some people sitting round it. They belonged to the party, but most
of the guests were inside, in a mandar’ah, or reception room, opening off the
courtyard.
    The mandar’ah had a sunken marble floor
paved with black and white marble and little pieces of fine red tile. In the
centre of the floor was a fountain playing into a small shallow pool lined with
coloured marbles like the floor.
    A number of people stood about the room in
groups, talking. Other groups reclined on large, fat, multi-coloured, leather
cushions. Some had Western-style drinks in their hand. Quite a few were
drinking coffee. All were talking.
    At the far end of the room was a dais with
large cushions. This was where the host normally sat, along with his most
honoured guests. There