The officers came nearer. They were carrying their briefcases.
Across the street a parked car revved its idling engine.
A bus drew up to the stop, and Wolff thought: Abdullah can't possibly have arranged that: ifs a piece of luck, a bonus.
The officers were five yards from Wolff.
The car across the street pulled out suddenly. It was a big black Packard with a powerful engine and soft American springing. It came across the road like a charging elephant, motor screaming in low gear, regardless of the main road traffic, heading for the side street its horn blowing continuously, on the corner, a few feet from where Wolff sat, it plowed, into the front of an old Fiat taxi.
The two officers stood beside Wolff's table and stared at the crash. The taxi driver, a young Arab in a Western shirt and a fez, leaped out of his car.
A young Greek in a mohair suit jumped out of the Packard.
The Arab said the Greek was the son of a pig.
The Greek said the Arab was the back end of a diseased camel. The Arab slapped the Greek's face and the Greek punched the Arab on the nose.
The people getting off the bus, and those who had been intending to get on it, came closer.
Around the comer, the acrobat who was standing on his colleague's head turned to look at the Rot, seemed to lose his balance, and fell into his audience.
A small boy darted past Wolffs table. Wolff stood up, pointed at the boy and shouted at the top of his voice: 'Stop, thief!'
The boy dashed off. Wolff went after him, and four people sitting near Wolff jumped up and tried to grab the boy. The child ran between the two officers, who were staring at the fight in the road. Wolff and the people who had jumped up to help him cannoned into the officers, knocking both of them to the ground. Several people began to shout 'Stop, thief!' although most of them bad no idea who the alleged thief was. Some of the newcomer thought it must be one of the fighting drivers. The crowd from the bus stop, the acrobats! Audience and most of the people in the cafe surged forward and began to attack one or other of the drivers--Arabs assuming the Greek was the culprit and everyone else assuming it was the Arab. Several men with sticks-most people carried sticks-began to push into the crowd, beating on heads at random in an attempt to break up the fighting which was entirely counterproductive. Someone picked up a chair from the cafe and hurled it into the crowd. Fortunately it overshot and went through the windshield of the Packard. However the waiters, the kitchen staff and the proprietor of the cafe now rushed out and began to attack everyone who swayed, stumbled or sat on their furniture. Everyone veiled at everyone else in five languages. Passing cars halted to watch the melee the traffic backed up in three directions and every stopped car sounded its horn. A dog struggled free of its leash and started biting people's legs in a frenzy of excitement. Everyone got off the bus. The brawling crowd became bigger by the second. Drivers who had stopped to watch the fun regretted it. for when the fight engulfed their cars they were unable to move away (because everyone else had stopped too) and they had to lock their doors and roll up their windows while men, women and children, Arabs and Greeks and Syrians and Jews and Australians and Scotsmen, jumped on their roofs and fought on their hoods and fell on their running boards and bled all over their paintwork. Somebody fell through the window of the tailor's shop next to the cafe, and a frightened goat ran into the souvenir shop which flanked the cafe on the other side and began to knock down all the tables laden with china and pottery and glass. A baboon came from somewhere-it had probably been riding the goat, in a common form of street entertainment- -and ran across the heads in the crowd, nimble-footed, to disappear in the direction of Alexandria. A horse broke free of its harness and bolted along the street between the lines of cars. From a window above the cafe a woman emptied a bucket of dirty water into the melee. Nobody noticed. At last the police arrived.
When people heard the whistles, suddenly the shoves and pushes and insults which had started their own individual fights seemed a lot less important.
There was a scramble to get away before the arrests began. The crowd diminished rapidly. Wolff, who bad fallen over early in the proceedings, picked himself up and strolled across the road to watch the denouement. By the time six people had been handcuffed it was all over, and there was no one left fighting except for an old woman in black and a one-legged beggar feebly shoving each other in the gutter. The cafe proprietor, the tailor and the owner of the souvenir shop were wringing their hands and berating the police for not coming sooner while they mentally doubled and trebled the damage for insurance purposes. The bus driver had broken his arm, but all the other injuries were cuts and bruises.
There was only one death; the goat had been bitten by the dog and consequently had to be destroyed.
When the police tried to move the two crashed cars, they discovered that during the fight the street urchins had jacked up the rear ends of both vehicles and stolen the tires.
Every single light bulb in the bus had also disappeared.
And so had one British Army briefcase.
Alex Wolff was feeling pleased with himself as he walked briskly through the alleys of Old Cairo. A week ago the task of prizing secrets out of GHQ had seemed close to impossible. Now it looked as if he bad pulled it off. The idea of getting Abdullah to orchestrate a street fight had been brilliant.
He wondered what would be in the briefcase.
Abdullah's house looked like all the other huddled slums. Its cracked and peeling facade was irregularly dotted with small misshapen windows. The entrance was a low doorless arch with a dark passage beyond. Wolff ducked under the arch, went along the passage and climbed a stone spiral stair-case. At the top he pushed through a curtain and entered Abdullah's living room.
The room was like its owner dirty, comfortable and rich. Three small children and a puppy chased each other around the expensive sofas and inlaid tables. In an alcove by a window an old woman worked on a tapestry. Another woman was drifting out of the room as Wolff walked in: there was no strict Muslim separation of the sexes here, as there had been in Wolff's boyhood home. In the middle of the floor Abdullah sat cross-legged on an embroidered cushion with a baby in his lap. He looked up at Wolff and smiled broadly. 'My friend, what a success we have had!'
Wolff sat on the floor opposite him. 'It was wonderful,' he said. 'You're a magician.'
'Such a riot! And the bus arriving at just the right moment-and the baboon running away. . .'
