To make matters worse, things seemed suddenly to have started to move with Leila, the Pasha’s friend. She smuggled a message to Aisha suggesting that they meet.

  ‘At the zoo again,’ said Aisha. ‘I fear the worst.’

  What the worst might be, Jamie was not sure. Anyway, Aisha could not be bothered with Leila just at the moment. She had too much on her mind.

  ‘Although,’ she said to Jamie, ‘what it may come to in the end is both of us, Leila and me, running away together.’

  Georgiades’s way in the mornings usually took him through the marshalling yards. There were always engines being prepared to go out and workmen crawling over them and under them, no matter, it seemed to Georgiades, at what hour. There was also, nearly always, a young man doing nothing but sitting on the foot plate of one of the engines, and there he was again that morning, sitting on one of the engine foot plates.

  ‘All right for some!’ said Georgiades.

  Crockhart-Mackenzie gave the man a wave. The man waved back.

  ‘Young Croc,’ said Crockhart-Mackenzie.

  ‘Young Croc?’

  ‘You remember me telling you about Old Croc?’

  ‘I do indeed.’

  ‘That’s his grandson.’

  ‘The one you were telling me about? The one keen on trains?’

  ‘That’s the one. Selim. Worked here ever since he was a nipper. Younger than that, in fact. Even since he was a toddler. His mother used to bring him up to watch the trains. She said it kept him quiet. And then when he could walk, he used to come up on his own. They would find him sitting under the engines. Of course, he shouldn’t have been doing that. It would be dangerous for children, with the engines coming and going. But he was always all right. The men used to look after him, knowing who his grandfather was.

  ‘And then, of course, he reached the stage when he was big enough to work here. He came the first day he could and got down to it in the works. But when he’s got a moment off, or before things have started for the day, he still likes to sit and watch. I asked him about it once, and he said he liked to watch them moving, the engines, you know. Big and powerful. And I suppose to him when he was small it looked like magic. And I think it’s still like that for him.’

  ‘Just watches?’

  ‘Of course, not when he’s got a job to do. They say he’s a good worker. Works hard and not the first man off at night. Don’t know what his grandfather thinks of it!’

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it, how things change? There was his grandfather, fighting against the British, and now there’s the grandson, head down under an engine, making sure it works! It’s good to see.’

  ‘It certainly is. But that’s progress for you.’

  They walked on past. There were a number of workmen around at this point, just coming on shift. Several of them exchanged words with the Young Croc, and Selim eventually got up and joined them.

  Almost at the last moment, when the shift was about to start, a man came running up. He pushed his way through the works, rather unceremoniously. Several of them looked at him angrily. The latecomer ignored them.

  Something about the latecomer struck Georgiades. Then he realized what it was. The man didn’t seem to be able to see too well.

  Georgiades quickened his pace and caught up with the man. The man’s eyes were red and streaming. Some flies came up and settled in the moisture. The man brushed them away.

  One of the men in front of him turned back and said something to him, and then they went on into the workshop together.

  The man who had turned back was Selim, the Young Croc, and the man he was speaking to, the man with the afflicted eyes, was the Shilluk, Lukudu.

  Without Aisha, as he mostly was that week, and in Cairo, a big, unfamiliar city, Jamie was a little bit at a loss. By rights, they should have returned to Atbara before now, but Mr Nicholson was detained in Cairo by train business and now had to stay on for a few more days. Jamie did not mind. He was getting used to Cairo now, the helter-skelter of the trains, the continual clanging of their bells, the press of the people – there were people everywhere, sometimes in the most unlikely places, lying along the top of walls, propped up in doorways, breakfasting in the middle of the streets, the bread looped round their arms, pushing along the street in their dark burkas, great wicker baskets in their hands and huge pots of water on their heads. And, of course, there were the animals: the camels nodding past carrying bundles of forage so great as to span the street, requiring him to dodge into doorways, which were nearly always crowded with people seeking the shade; fat-tailed Passover lambs, painted all the hues of the rainbow by loving owners; donkeys, oxen, geese.

  The dog-faced baboon in the posh red trousers – made for it in the interests of decency by the American lady missionary – which had clutched his hand on the first day, still clutched at him when he went past, but with an increasing air of familiarity, and other performing animals, such as the lemurs sitting confidently on the back of donkeys, continued to look at him hopefully.

  But the excitement of newness had worn off and Jamie was the tiniest bit bored. He rather missed Aisha but knew that she was preoccupied with momentous things, like avoiding getting married.

  So he was quite pleased when one morning he found his arm clutched by a small, burkaed figure which even he soon realized was the Pasha’s lady friend, Leila.

  ‘Dzhamie!’ she said, and then burst into a torrent of words. Unfortunately, they were in French. Arabic, Jamie could have managed better. The flow of words dwindled, and the screened face of the burkaed figure looked at him doubtfully.

  Or so Jamie guessed.

  ‘Fain el Aisha? Where’s Aisha?’

  ‘She’s very busy. Trouble at home.’

  ‘I wish,’ said Leila, ‘to speak with her.’

  ‘She’s unpredictable,’ said Jamie, which was putting it mildly. ‘Sometimes we meet at the Bab-es-Zuweyla.’

  ‘Let us go there.’

  Today, however, there was no sign of Aisha at the great gate.

  ‘We could try waiting,’ said Jamie.

  ‘I cannot stay long,’ said Leila. ‘They will be looking for me.’

  ‘It’s not far to your house,’ said Jamie.

  Leila stood by uncertainly. Even under the loose, enveloping burka and the long face veil, people could see that she was actually a young girl, which just about made it acceptable for her to talk to a man. Even an Englishman. Or perhaps that, too, made it easier, for Englishmen, especially English boys, could not be expected to know any better. But it wouldn’t have done, sixth sense told Jamie, to stand there talking for too long.

  Fortunately, Aisha dashed up. ‘Oh! You!’ she said, seeing Leila and coming to a halt.

  ‘The master is going away!’ she said. ‘He is going this afternoon. He will be taking Abdul with him, as he is going down to Atbara. It is in the Sudan, and he is frightened. So they will all be away and I thought we could go to the zoo.’

  ‘The zoo!’ said Aisha, who clearly thought there were better things to do with freedom.

  ‘And we could hide in one of the little houses, where no one could see us, and watch the birds.’

  ‘The birds?’

  ‘Yes. The parrots. And parakeets. All pretty colours.’

  ‘Well, yes. That would be nice.’

  ‘And you could buy me an ice cream.’

  ‘Certainly!’ said Jamie, ever the gentleman. Realism intervened. ‘One of the smaller ones,’ he said.

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Aisha.

  They found their way into one of the little summer houses. Inside, they were concealed from everyone else. Everywhere there was the squawking of birds, especially the raucous shouts of the parakeets, who seemed to be having a debate of their own.

  ‘Did you say the Pasha was going down to Atbara?’ said Aisha suddenly.

  ‘Yes. He is probably on the train now.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ said Aisha. ‘My father is going there, too. Probably on the same train,’

  ‘My father isn’t!’ said Jamie, aggrieved.

  ‘Lucky him!’ said Aisha.

  ‘I don’t like the Sudan,’ said Leila. ‘There is a lot of nothingness there, and it’s very hot.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ said Jamie loyally.

  ‘Why is your father staying here?’ asked Aisha.

  ‘Something to do with trains,’ said Jamie.

  ‘Oh!’

  Aisha lost interest.

  ‘Let us look at the hippopotamus,’ said Leila.

  They walked over to the hippopotamus’s pool.

  ‘What an ugly brute!’ said Aisha.

  Leila clapped her hands. ‘He’s like an elephant!’

  ‘Except that he hasn’t got a trunk,’ said Jamie.

  ‘With his trunk cut off,’ amended Leila.

  There was certainly something in common between the hippopotamus and the elephant. Close up, their skins were very similar: grey and wrinkled and dusty in the folds. They seemed to fit loosely over their bodies, as if by giving them a tug you might pull them off.

  ‘So the Pasha’s away,’ said Aisha.

  ‘Aisha,’ said Leila nervously. ‘I don’t think that just because he’s away, this would be a good time …’

  She stopped.

  ‘Yes?’ said Aisha.

  ‘A good time to run away,’ finished Leila in a hurry.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Aisha relentlessly.

  ‘I don’t think the Pasha would like it,’ said Leila, worried.

  ‘The question is,’ said Aisha sharply, ‘would you like it?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Leila hastily, ‘I would like it. Of course. But … but perhaps not this afternoon.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ said Aisha ruthlessly.

  ‘I – I think that may be a bit early.’

  Aisha turned away.

  ‘I think I’m going home.’

  ‘Oh, no, please don’t, Aisha!’ said Leila. ‘I really do want to run away. Sometimes. But … not just now.’

  ‘You’ve got to think about it first,’ said Jamie. ‘Where would you run to, for a start?’

  ‘You’re always raising practical questions,’ said Aisha.

  ‘I know!’ said Jamie. ‘You could come down to our house. I’m sure my mother wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘In Atbara?’ said Aisha incredulously.

  ‘In Atbara?’ echoed Leila.

  It did seem a bit impracticable.

  ‘I suppose someone might see you on the train,’ he finished weakly.

  ‘Yes, the Pasha,’ said Leila, eager now in support.

  Aisha now turned definitely away.

  ‘So what have you been doing this morning?’ asked Mr Nicholson.

  He was chatting to the Mamur Zapt.

  ‘I was talking to Aisha.’

  ‘Oh, yes? That’s nice.’

  ‘Not very,’ said Jamie. ‘She’s a bit fed up.’

  ‘Oh, why?’

  ‘Her mum wants her to marry.’

  ‘A bit young for that, isn’t she?’ said Mr Nicholson.

  ‘Not in Egypt, it isn’t,’ said Jamie.

  ‘I still think she’s a bit young,’ said his father.

  ‘Do you think you can do anything about it?’ Jamie asked Owen directly.

  ‘Me? Not really. It’s not the sort of thing I usually—’

  ‘Aisha is very bothered. She says her mum wants to marry her off to some fat Pasha.’

  ‘I’m afraid these things have to be left to parents here. Why doesn’t she talk to her father? He seems a sensible bloke.’

  ‘She has.’

  ‘I’m afraid that in that case—’

  ‘She says he won’t listen to her, which is most unlike him. He’s got something on his mind, she says.’

  ‘I can believe that,’ said the Mamur Zapt.

  ‘And, anyway, he’s going to Atbara.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Owen.

  ‘And the Pasha, too.’

  ‘The Pasha? The Pasha Hilmi?’

  ‘Yes. Our Pasha.’

  ‘Are you sure, Jamie?’ said his father. ‘Because the last time I spoke to him I gathered that that was about the last thing that he was likely to do.’

  ‘Leila says so.’

  ‘Leila?’

  ‘The Pasha’s sort-of wife.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. He went off this afternoon.’

  ‘Well, that’s very interesting!’ said Owen. ‘Do you mind if I make a phone call?’

  Georgiades was waiting on the platform when the train arrived.

  So were several other people, and he noted them with interest. There was Selim, the Young Croc, not in the background this time but at the forefront, talking as an equal to a group of elderly men with an air of seniority. Among them was a very old, white-turbaned man supported by two anxious boys. Selim went across to the old man and knelt respectfully and then embraced him. Georgiades guessed that he was the Old Croc.

  One of the men who got off the train with the Pasha Hilmi was Aisha’s father, Yasin al-Jawad. He bowed respectfully to the Old Croc and to several of the other elderly men, but then pulled aside. A little later, Georgiades saw him talking familiarly to the Young Croc.

  The party of seniors left the station on foot. The Old Croc, sprightly but with his boys nervously in attention, went with them. The Young Croc, with Yasin, left a little after, while the senior party went straight to a house in the outskirts of Atbara. Yasin and Selim broke away to a little restaurant in the side street. As was often the case in hot countries like Egypt and the Sudan the restaurant was partly underground and therefore cooler as it was shielded from the sun.

  Georgiades, not for the first time in his life, wished there were two of him. After thinking about it, he left Yasin and Selim in the restaurant and went to the house the others had entered, but remained outside sitting in the shade of a house round the corner. From there he could keep an eye on comings and goings. Sometime later Yasin and Selim appeared, knocked discreetly and went in.

  Georgiades continued to sit.

  A man came up carrying a covered basket. The door was opened by a woman in a blue burka whose face was unveiled and lined and worn. She took in the basket. A little later the smell of cooking was in the air.

  Much later there was the sound of voices raised in anger from inside.

  The two Crocs, the older and the younger, appeared in the doorway arguing.

  The Old Croc gave the younger a cuff, which Selim accepted submissively. Then the Old Croc went back inside and the Young Croc walked away.

  Again, Georgiades didn’t know whether to follow or stay. After a moment’s resolution, he followed.

  He realized after a while that he was on a familiar road. He hung back and when Selim knocked on the door of one of the houses and went in, he took up position in the shade, from where he could keep a watch.

  It was not so long this time. The door opened and Selim emerged. He shrugged his shoulders and went away.

  It was the house of the Sayyids, where Georgiades had been before.

  He allowed time to pass and then knocked. The door was flung open and the mother of the drowned man came out angrily.

  ‘Is it not enough—’ she began, and then stopped.

  ‘I come at the wrong moment,’ said Georgiades, humbly.

  ‘Well, you do,’ said the woman, but nevertheless invited him in.

  ‘You are angry!’ said Georgiades.

  ‘Well, I am,’ said the woman. ‘The man came before, when our son was not cold in his grave, and tried to make all well. But when you have lost a son, nothing can make it well.’

  ‘I will go,’ said Georgiades. ‘I wouldn’t have come, but I heard … I heard something so shocking that I had to come.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘It was about my friend. They say that his death was not an accident.’

  ‘That is what I said!’ said the woman.

  ‘I could not believe it. I know that was what you told me, but then I thought, well the mother is distraught. Who would want to kill someone like my old friend?’

  ‘Yes, who?’ said the mother.

  ‘I mean, he wasn’t perfect. No one is. But he wasn’t bad, so why should anyone …?’

  ‘Why, indeed? After all he had done for them!’

  ‘He worked so hard on their behalf! At least,’ he said hurriedly, ‘that is what I heard.’

  ‘He was out every night,’ said the mother. ‘Always working for people. Much good it did him. And now my daughter has been left husbandless, and the child without a father!’

  ‘Friends, even back in Cairo, will want to know this,’ said Georgiades.

  ‘They can do nothing,’ said the father, suddenly appearing beside his wife.

  ‘It is not right,’ said the daughter, there, too. ‘I am left without a man and my son without a father.’

  ‘And that man brought money!’ said the mother. ‘And he was the one who had egged him on!’

  ‘Peace, woman!’ said the father. ‘It can do no good now.’

  ‘You should never have married him,’ the woman said to her daughter.

  ‘That was not what you said when he asked for me,’ said the daughter. ‘Then, it was, “a rich man you have got there, daughter!”’

  ‘I thought he was rich, and so did you at the time.’

  ‘At the time, yes,’ said the daughter.

  ‘When he wanted to move in with us, we should have known!’ said the father.

  ‘It was while we were waiting for the right house to turn up,’ said the daughter.

  ‘Which would be never!’

  ‘I can’t understand it,’ said Georgiades. ‘Was not your man much respected?’

  ‘Until they knew him,’ said the mother.

  ‘That is not fair, Mother!’ said the daughter. ‘I don’t know what happened, but at first they all respected him.’

  ‘So I was told!’ said Georgiades.

  ‘But then they fell out,’ said the daughter. ‘He and that other man, who has just been here. And offered us money.’

  ‘He has offered us money before,’ said the mother.

  ‘Not him, Mother!’ said the daughter. ‘The money was from the men in the office. They knew he had done much for them.’

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25