The Camel of Destruction by Michael Pearce Read Free Book Online

if the endowment has merely been transferred, the issue does not arise.’
    ‘If it’s a developer, he’s going to close down the school.’
    ‘You’d have to wait until it was clear that was what he was going to do.’
    ‘It would be too late, then. He’d have demolished the building.’
    ‘It wouldn’t matter anyway because he could always say he was going to open another school somewhere else in the neighbourhood.’
    ‘What about the argument that the relative didn’t know what he was doing when he sold the benefit? The Widow Shawquat said he was senile.’
    ‘She’d have to be able to prove that.’
    ‘I don’t know that she’d be very good at proving anything. Not if it came to a real legal wrangle with lawyers. The other side would be able to afford good lawyers and she wouldn’t.’
    ‘I’d do it myself,’ said Mahmoud, ‘only I’m going to be tied up for at least two months. This is a big case.’
    ‘Oh heavens, no; I wasn’t dreaming of involving you to that extent. In fact, I wasn’t really thinking of involving the Widow Shawquat if I didn’t have to. I was wondering if I could appeal myself.’
    ‘As Mamur Zapt?’ Mahmoud frowned. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you. The Ministry is nationalist, not in my way but in a different way. They would be prejudiced from the start.’
    ‘What do I do, then? Someone’s got to formally appeal, presumably?’
    ‘Yes. But it ought to be someone who would impress the Ministry of Religious Endowments. Someone preferably of religious weight. And that,
cher ami
,’ said Mahmoud drily, ‘is not you.’
     
    The Agricultural Bank occupied the first and second floors of a large modern building in the Ismailiya Quarter. The ground floor was occupied by a furrier’s, which in the climate of Egypt might appear to err on the optimistic side. The Ismailiya, however, was the fashionable European quarter and its purchasers were thinking more of France than they were of Egypt.
    Owen asked about access to the Bank.
    ‘We don’t deal directly with the public,’ said the clerk to the Board loftily.
    He was another Copt, like Nikos. The original inhabitants of the city, before even the Arabs, the Copts seemed to take to administration naturally and settled in the Ministries like water finding its own level.
    The Arabs couldn’t understand it at all. They thought they had defeated them and now here they were being governed by them! It was another of the little things that didn’t help the popular attitude towards the Civil Service.
    ‘How do you deal with them, then?’ asked Owen.
    ‘We lay down policy.’
    ‘I thought you made grants to fellahin?’
    ‘We do that through the
omda
.’ The village headman.
    ‘And you don’t go out to the villages yourselves?’
    ‘I believe some people do.’
    He brought Owen minutes of the Board’s meetings and papers recently considered.
    ‘Self-explanatory, I think.’
    Owen detained him.
    ‘The thing I’m trying to establish is Mr. Fingari’s exact role.’
    ‘He represented the Ministry.’
    ‘I know. What did he do?’
    ‘He expressed the Ministry’s viewpoint.’
    ‘Which was?’
    The clerk gestured towards the papers.
    ‘It’s all in the minutes,’ he said.
    A Greek, expensively dressed and with an air of seniority, came through the door. Owen recognized him. It was Zokosis, one of the businessmen who had invited him to meet them at the Hotel Continentale. He shook hands.
    ‘I hope Petros has been helping you?’
    ‘We have some way to go.’
    ‘Ah!’ He sat down. ‘Try me.’
    ‘Thank you. I’m trying to establish what Fingari actually
did
.’
    The Greek laughed. ‘Good question,’ he said. ‘At least, I think so. I wonder what any of them do. Well, look, all I can do is tell you what he did for us. He attended Board meetings once a month. Meetings usually occupy the whole morning.’
    ‘And in between?’
    ‘Well, of course, there would be papers to read. Possibly he even drafted