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

schools. At el Azhar, the
great Islamic university of Cairo, the students studied only the Koran.
    The
students finished their bowls and left. The bean-seller began clearing away his
stall. At the far end of the Taht er Rebaa a crowd was coming into view.
    “You
carry on shaving,” the Greek ordered. “I don’t want you running away before
you’ve finished.”
    “Who
is running away?” said the barber. “There is still plenty of time.”
    “I
am running away,” said the bean-seller. “Definitely.”
    At
this time in the afternoon the Place Bab el Khalk was fairly empty. A few
women, dressed in black and heavily veiled in this part of the city, were
slip-slopping across the square, water-jars on heads, to fetch water for the
evening meal. Men sat in the open air cafés or at the street-stalls drinking
tea. Children played on the balconies, in the doorways, in the gutter.
    The
bean-seller apart, no one appeared to be paying much attention to the
approaching demonstrators, though Owen knew they were well aware of them. When
the time came, they would slip back off the streets—not too far, they wouldn’t
want to miss anything—and take refuge in the open-fronted shops or in the
houses. Every balcony would be crowded.
    He could pick out the head of the column
distinctly now. They were marching in disciplined, purposeful fashion behind
three large green banners and were setting a brisk pace. Behind them the Sharia
was packed with black-gowned figures.
    Some of the more nervous café-owners were
beginning to fold up chairs and tables and move them indoors. Obliging
customers picked up their own chairs and took them into the shops and doorways,
where they sat down again and continued their absorbing conversations. There
were no women on the street now, and children were being called inside.
    The barber wiped the last suds from the
Greek’s face with a brave flourish.
    The Greek felt his chin.
    “Wait a minute,” he said. “What about here?”
    “Perfect,” said the barber.
    “Show me!” commanded the Greek.
    The barber reluctantly produced a tin mirror
and held it before him.
    “It’s lop-sided,” complained the Greek.
“You’ve done one side and not the other!”
    “Both sides I have done,” said the barber,
casting an uneasy glance down the street. “It is just that one side of your
face is longer than the other.”
    The Greek insisted, and the barber began to
snip and scrape at the offending part.
    The tea-seller lifted his huge brass urn off
the counter and took it up an alleyway. Owen felt in his pocket for the
necessary millièmes.
    The procession was about a hundred yards
away now. At this stage it was still fairly orderly. The students had formed up
into ranks about twenty abreast and were marching in a disciplined column,
though with the usual untidy fringe around the flanks, which would melt away at
the first sign of trouble.
    The barber dropped his scissors into a metal
bowl with a clang and hurriedly pulled the protective cloth from off the Greek.
The Greek stood up and began to wipe his face. The barber threw his things
together and made off down a sidestreet. As he went, the Greek dropped some
millièmes in the bowl.
    Owen folded his newspaper and stepped back
into the protective cover of a carpet shop. The shop was, like all the shops,
without a front, but the carpets might prove a useful shield if things got
really nasty.
    The Greek came over and stood beside him.
    “Not long now,” he said.
    The head of the procession entered the
Place. Owen’s professional eye picked out among the black gowns several figures
in European clothes. These were almost certainly not students but full-time
retainers of the various political parties, maintained by them to marshal their
own meetings and break up those of their rivals.
    As the column marched past, the students
seemed to become progressively younger. El Azhar took students as young as
thirteen, and some of the students at the back of the column