‘Tell us!’ shouted Sheikh Isa. ‘Tell us!’

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘Who he was with. Come on! Out with it! Let’s have the name of the whore!’

  ‘Which whore?’ asked the old woman. ‘There are plenty of them.’

  ‘The one who was with Ibrahim that night!’

  ‘You know who was with him that night.’

  ‘Not Jalila, you fool. The other one!’

  The woman regarded him unabashed.

  ‘Oh ho!’ she said. ‘You’re waking up, are you?’

  ‘My eyes have been opened!’

  ‘Well, about time, too. But I can’t help you.’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘Not for certain. But I could have a pretty good guess.’

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘Oh, no. I couldn’t tell you.’

  ‘Why not?’ thundered the sheikh.

  ‘You told me not to gossip.’

  ‘This isn’t gossip!’

  ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘Why, it’s—it’s simply giving information. That’s all.’

  ‘But that’s what I was doing last week when you told me not to!’

  ‘Don’t trifle with me, bitch!’

  ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t tell you, I’m afraid,’ said the old woman, greatly enjoying herself. ‘I do know, as a matter of fact, or, at least, I could make a pretty good guess. But I couldn’t tell you. It wouldn’t be right.’

  ‘Just tell me, you old bitch!’

  ‘My sheikh told me not to!’

  Sheikh Isa raised his stick and the old woman darted back behind the door.

  ‘Shame on you!’ she said. ‘First you tempt me into vice; then you beat me! I shall go to your prayer meeting tomorrow and I shall call out to all the people: “Sheikh Isa tempted me to vice and then when I wouldn’t succumb, he threatened to beat me!”’

  The stick smashed against the door. Evidently Sheikh Isa was not feared as greatly in the village as Owen had supposed.

  Mahmoud decided to intervene.

  ‘You joke, Mother,’ he said sternly, ‘but this is no laughing matter. A man has died.’ The woman opened the door and looked at him.

  ‘Are you the kadi?’ she asked.

  ‘I am as the kadi.’

  ‘You’ve been a long time coming. Justice doesn’t get to this place often.’

  ‘It has come now. And it seeks your help. When Ibrahim went out that night, after he had left Jalila, he went out to meet another woman. Do you know who she might have been?’

  The old woman looked at him for a moment or two without replying. Then she sighed and said:

  ‘Ibrahim was a fool. He never could leave the women alone. But it’s not right that he should die because of that. That’s not justice, is it? So I will tell you. I don’t know who he went out to see that night. But I know who he had an eye for: Khadija.’

  ‘Khadija?’ shouted the sheikh. ‘Khadija?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You old bitch! You’re just mischief-making!’

  ‘Who is Khadija?’ asked Mahmoud.

  The woman turned to him.

  ‘Leila’s sister.’

  ‘The murdered man’s wife,’ said Owen.

  ‘You lie, woman!’ shouted the sheikh.

  ‘I don’t lie!’ said the woman defiantly. ‘It’s true! He’s always had an eye for her. Some say he wanted to marry her and not the other one. I don’t know about that but I do know he’s always had an eye for her, even after he got married.’

  ‘Did you talk to the wife’s family?’ Owen asked Mahmoud quietly.

  ‘I did. But I didn’t talk to her.’

  ‘It is possible,’ Sheikh Isa grudgingly acknowledged. ‘Though unseemly!’ He glared at the old woman.

  ‘Of course, she doesn’t come from our village,’ said the old woman cunningly.

  ‘That’s true!’ said Sheikh Isa, struck.

  ‘Where does she come from?’ asked Owen.

  ‘Tel-el-Hasan.’

  ‘I must go there,’ said Sheikh Isa, ‘and tell Sheikh Riyad. Together we will denounce her!’

  ‘Hold back a little,’ said Mahmoud. ‘We do not know yet that she was the one.’

  ‘He had an eye for her; we know that, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes, but we don’t know that she had an eye for him.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have looked in her direction if she hadn’t lured him, would he? Whores! Whores! They’re all whores!’ shouted Sheikh Isa, as he hurried away.

  ***

  Tel-el-Hasan, where the wife’s family came from, was a village less than two miles away. Like Matariya, it was a cluster of trees. Although the villages were some four or five miles away from the Nile, they were connected to it by irrigation channels. Their chief course of water, however, was the main Khalig Canal, which became the Ismailiya Canal just beyond Matariya. Again, they were not directly on the canal but connected to it through the irrigation system, a mass of small channels, ditches and furrows which ran water across the fields. There was, though, probably at both Matariya and Tel-el-Hasan, an underground supply of water which the wells were tapping and which accounted for the dense foliage of the trees.

  In one of the gadwals, or ditches, two small boys were fighting. Mahmoud, for justice even among small boys, stepped down into the ditch and pulled them apart.

  ‘He’s smaller than you,’ he remonstrated.

  ‘It’s a blood feud,’ said the bigger boy.

  ‘Shame on you! In the same village?’

  ‘He’s not really of this village,’ said the bigger boy.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said the smaller boy tearfully.

  ‘No, you’re not. That’s his house over there!’

  He pointed to a small house on the outskirts or, if you were pedantic, just beyond the outskirts of the village.

  ‘That counts as village,’ said Mahmoud firmly, and let the boys scamper off.

  ‘Even that little distance!’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It makes two miles away seem like a foreign country.’

  ‘They marry between villages, though,’ said Owen.

  ‘They have to. The trouble is, it doesn’t diminish the distance.’

  ‘Was the family bent on feud?’

  ‘They wouldn’t say. They wouldn’t say anything.’

  ‘You know, this could be solved. It doesn’t have to turn into a blood feud. From the point of view of the woman’s family, no blood has been shed.’

  ‘From the point of view of the man’s family it has, though. If they think it was one of the wife’s family, they’ll want revenge.’

  ‘Why should it be one of the wife’s family?’

  ‘Honour.’

  ‘Do they care about the woman that much?’

  ‘No. But they do care about the family and they say the family’s been slighted.’

  ‘Ibrahim’s family could pay recompense.’

  ‘Recompense is the last thing it’s thinking of at the moment. One of its men has been killed and it wants revenge.’

  ‘It could pay a little and send the wife back.’

  ‘That would make it worse. The wife’s family would say it showed a lack of respect. Funnily enough, I think Ibrahim’s family would take that view too. They’ve got no thought of sending her back. They don’t like her particularly, all she’s had are two daughters, it’s just an extra burden on them—and yet it hasn’t entered their heads to send her back. She became part of the family by marriage and now it’s their job to look after her. No, what they’re really interested in is the man. A man’s been killed, their man, and that must be paid for.’

  Owen nodded. When he had first come to Egypt he had spent a few months patrolling the desert and knew about feuds and the tribal code of honour.

  ‘The danger is,’ he said, ‘that they’ll kill someone in the wife’s family, and then there’ll be another death to be paid for, and so it’ll go on.’

  ‘These villagers!’ said Mahmoud.

  ‘Let’s hope it’s not someone in the wife’s family.’

  ‘Let’s hope we find out who it is,’ said Mahmoud, ‘before they do.’

  ***

  The roof of the house was piled high with brushwood, vegetables and buffalo dung, all in close proximity to each other. From the corners of the roof, strings of onions dangled down, each onion as vast as a melon. Poor the people might be, hungry they were not. Where there was such food there must be men to earn it or grow it, and, sure enough, inside the house there were three of them.

  ‘You again?’ said the older brother unwelcomingly to Mahmoud.

  ‘It is justice for your sister that I seek,’ said Mahmoud softly.

  ‘We will look after that.’

  ‘No,’ said Mahmoud, shaking his head. ‘You will not.’

  The brother stared at him for a moment and then looked at Owen.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘The Mamur Zapt.’

  The man flinched slightly. Old memories, the old legend, died hard.

  ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘To talk to Khadija.’

  ‘Khadija! There is no point. Talk to us.’

  ‘I talked to you the other day,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Now I would talk with Khadija.’

  The men looked at each other.

  ‘She is not here,’ said one of the other brothers defiantly.

  ‘Then I will wait until she returns,’ said Mahmoud, settling himself comfortably.

  ‘You cannot speak with her!’

  ‘Why is it important that I do not speak with her?’

  ‘It is not important; she is a woman, that is all.’

  ‘Would you like my friend to go into the women’s quarters and fetch her out? He has the right.’

  It was true. The Mamur Zapt had right of entry into all houses in Cairo, including harems. Whether that right extended as far out as Tel-el-Hasan, however, was questionable.

  It was also questionable how far the right could be made to stick. Only two years before, not far from here, a policeman had been shot while conducting his investigations.

  Owen stirred, as if ready to get to his feet. The men looked at each other.

  A woman came through the door which led to the inner room.

  ‘Let them talk to me,’ she said.

  ‘Khadija?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I will do the talking,’ said the eldest brother.

  The woman stood with arms folded. She was not exactly veiled, but had pulled her headdress across her face so that they could not see it.

  ‘Did you know Ibrahim?’ asked Mahmoud, putting his question, however, not to her but to her brother, as was the convention.

  ‘How could she?’ said the brother.

  ‘I am asking her.’

  ‘I knew my sister’s husband,’ she said quietly.

  ‘She knew him as a sister-in-law should.’

  ‘I have no doubt about that. But was it the same with him? Would he have known her, that is, would he have liked to have known her, in a different way?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask him,’ said one of the other brothers, and laughed.

  ‘That is a disrespectful question,’ said the oldest brother.

  ‘It has to be asked. For others are asking it too.’

  ‘They are?’

  The oldest brother’s cheeks tautened.

  ‘That village makes a jest of us, brother,’ said one of the others angrily.

  Mahmoud held up his hand.

  ‘Not a jest. And they show no disrespect. For all they say is that he behaved disrespectfully to you.’

  ‘In disrespecting us,’ said the woman angrily, ‘he disrespected my sister.’

  ‘It was, however, by eye alone?’

  ‘He would have liked it otherwise.’

  ‘But it was by eye alone?’

  ‘With me, it was. But not with my sister. With her it was by deed.’

  ‘He shamed her publicly,’ growled one of the brothers.

  ‘By going to Jalila?’

  ‘Every night. He made no secret of it. And nor did she. “I can give you sons,” she said, “even if your wife can’t.”’

  ‘Who was she to talk?’ said the woman fiercely. ‘How many sons had she? At least Leila had had daughters. And sons would have come. They always do in our family. Look at them!’

  She pointed to her brothers.

  ‘I am puzzled,’ said Owen. ‘First, he left your sister for Jalila. And then he would have left Jalila for you?’

  ‘If he had had the chance!’ said Khadija.

  ‘He wouldn’t have got the chance,’ said one of the brothers angrily. ‘What do you think we are: men who make their sisters into whores?’

  ‘Whores!’ shouted a familiar voice in the street.

  Owen and Mahmoud looked at each other.

  ‘Oh God!’ said Owen. ‘It’s Sheikh Isa!’

  ***

  Out in the street was Sheikh Isa, together with another religious sheikh, as old, venerable and, probably, as irascible as himself, supported by an interested crowd of onlookers.

  ‘This is untimely!’ said Owen.

  ‘God’s work does not wait on man’s convenience,’ said Sheikh Isa unyieldingly.

  ‘God’s work? You call it God’s work to come to a house and denounce a woman who may well be guiltless?’

  ‘Innocence is for God to judge, not man!’ bellowed the sheikh. ‘Man looks only at incidentals but God sees into the very heart!’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my heart!’ said Khadija stoutly.

  ‘There’ll be something wrong with yours in a minute!’ said one of the brothers, diving back into the house.

  Mahmoud caught him as he re-emerged carrying a rifle.

  ‘Enough!’ shouted Owen.

  He forced the gun out of the man’s hands and covered the other two.

  ‘Stay where you are!’

  ‘To the caracol with them!’ shouted Sheikh Isa, enraged.

  Mahmoud looked at Owen.

  ‘That might not be such a bad idea.’

  Owen nodded.

  ‘Fetch me rope!’ he commanded.

  Some men ran into a nearby house and returned with a coil.

  ‘I’m arresting you,’ said Mahmoud to the brother he was holding. He tied the man’s hands.

  ‘And you! And you!’ he said to the other brothers.

  ‘We haven’t done anything!’ shouted the brothers.

  ‘Let’s keep it like that. Turn round!’

  ‘What about me?’ cried Khadija.

  ‘Whore!’ shouted Sheikh Isa. ‘You’re the one who started it all!’

  One of the brothers made a grab for the gun. Owen brought it down on his arm. Mahmoud caught him from behind and tied his hands deftly.

  ‘You stay out of this!’ Owen said to Sheikh Isa. ‘You stay here!’ he said to Khadija.

  ‘And you,’ he said to the other sheikh, ‘see that she comes to no harm!’

  Mahmoud finished tying the brothers and stepped back.

  ‘Why are you doing this to them?’ demanded Khadija.

  ‘To save them from being shot,’ said Owen in an aside.

  Chapter Five

  The station at Matariya did not amount to much. It was merely a stop in the desert. There was no platform and no building, apart from a water tower. There was normally, however, a ticket collector, who sat on a chair under a solitary acacia tree and took tickets when they were offered.

  This morning, though, when Owen climbed down from the train, he was not there. The chair stood in its usual place, unoccupied. Owen, who had been under the impression that the collector was permanently fixed to it, was a little surprised; surprised, too, that at this halt, when normally the only things moving were the little desert sparrows that liked to assemble on the arm that swung out from the water tower, there were people scurrying about.

  When the train pulled out he saw what it was all about. On the other side of the track, about a hundred yards away, was a large ostrich pen and this morning it was the scene of considerable commotion. Great birds were running agitatedly about the pen, flapping their huge wings as if attempting to take off. They ran manically, not heeding where they were going, and from time to time one bore down on the fence near the station. Whenever that happened, men working on the fence would rush out and wave their arms and shout and at the last moment the huge bird, about nine feet high and twenty stones in weight, would panic and swerve and head off again across the desert.

  It was all very exciting and Owen could see at once why it had attracted a crowd of onlookers, including the ticket collector. He could see now, too, that there was a gap in the fence, which the men were working on.

  This side of the fence, near the track, a man was lying on the ground and a small group of people were bending over him.

  Owen walked across.

  The man was holding his neck and groaning.

  ‘Be of good cheer, Ja’affar,’ said one of the men bending over him. ‘We have sent for the barber.’

  ‘I don’t need a barber,’ groaned the man on the ground, ‘I need a hakim.’

  ‘The barber is cheaper, Ja’affar,’ advised one of the men.

  Ja’affar just groaned.

  ‘Perhaps Zaghlul will send for a hakim,’ suggested another of the men.

  ‘Zaghlul?’ said the man on the ground. ‘Not if it costs money! He might send for the sheikh to pray for me.’

  ‘Here is an effendi,’ said one of the men. ‘Perhaps he is a hakim.’

  ‘I am afraid not,’ said Owen. ‘But let a hakim be summoned and I will pay.’

  He looked down at the man on the ground.

  ‘Why, it’s you!’ he said, surprised, recognizing the man he’d spoken to with Asif. ‘Of course! You work at the farm.’

  ‘That bloody bird! I didn’t see it coming.’

  ‘It got through the fence, Ja’affar, and ran away.’

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19