The Bride Box

EIGHT

Mahmoud’s daughter, Maryam, went to school. This was uncommon even among his colleagues at the Parquet. Having themselves got where they were by education, they were all in favour of it for their own young. For their sons, that was. Even among the relatively liberal Parquet lawyers, valuing of education and ambition for their offspring did not extend as far as educating their daughters, too.

Or in any case, only a bit. When their daughters grew old enough for their fathers to notice their existence and to start planning for their marriages a few of them were sent to special European-style finishing schools so that they might not be totally boring to their husbands when they got married, who were also likely to be bright Parquet lawyers.

Mahmoud, however, thought differently. Only the best was going to be good enough for his children, male or female, and he meant to see that right from the start they received an education along progressive Western lines. There were in Cairo one or two kindergartens chiefly for the children of well-to-do Europeans. It was to one of these that he decided to send Maryam.

When he learned what it was going to cost him he almost changed his mind. Young Parquet lawyers, no matter how bright, were not highly paid. Aisha, however, his strong-willed and equally liberal wife, who was just becoming aware of some of the arguments about the ‘New Woman’ that were currently occurring in France, did not agree. Equality of the sexes had to begin very early — indeed, from birth — and her adored Maryam was certainly going to receive as good an education as any brother.

Mahmoud, logical to the last, had to admit the force of this point of view: so Maryam went, hand in hand with her mother, to the kindergarten every morning.

And where she went, could not Leila go too? Or so Zeinab thought. Aisha was not sure about this. Leila was an adorable child, but was she as capable of benefiting from advanced education in the way that her own perfect daughter certainly would be able to?

And then there was the question of cost. Owen was barely richer than Mahmoud and Leila, damn it, was not even their daughter. Zeinab hadn’t the faintest idea about money except that she knew Owen hadn’t got any; so she applied, as she usually did, to her father. Nuri Pasha didn’t know much about money either — he left all that sort of thing to his steward — but he did know that he had less than he thought he did. However, he was interested in the latest French fashions when it came to ideas. He had brought up Zeinab very much au courant with them and had made no difference between her and his son, a decision much assisted by the fact that he couldn’t help noticing that Zeinab was about twice as bright as her brother.

So he saw no reason why Leila shouldn’t be educated, and the fact that she was the next best thing to a slave’s daughter was no problem to him. Hadn’t Zeinab’s own mother started off as a slave? And she had developed into the most beautiful courtesan in Cairo. It may be that Leila could do the same! She was a bright little girl, according to Zeinab. Why not? Stranger things had happened. So he didn’t mind paying for Leila to go to the kindergarten; it could even be looked upon as an investment.

So off now went Leila every morning, hand in hand with Maryam, usually with Aisha or Zeinab but sometimes with Musa’s wife in attendance.

The warehouse clerk and the Greek were by now great buddies. Rare was the morning when Georgiades did not drop in to take the clerk round the corner to the coffee house they favoured. The clerk felt that he was doing the Greek a good turn by lending a sympathetic ear to his tales of marital woe; and, besides, as he confessed to Georgiades, there wasn’t much happening in the warehouse at the moment. ‘But it will all be different next week,’ he said.

‘How’s that?’

‘Well, Clarke Effendi is returning and bringing with him many goods, which will all have to be put in their right places and accounted for — and, no doubt, there will soon be billing to be done.’

‘Bales and bales of gum arabic?’ said the Greek. ‘And trocchee shells?’

‘And other things, too.’

‘Pretty slave girls?’ prompted Georgiades.

‘I should be so lucky!’ said the clerk. He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no such luck. But sometimes there is a special consignment.’ He put up his hand. ‘Don’t ask me what it is,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. Clarke Effendi keeps all that to himself.’ He laid a finger along his nose. ‘He handles it all himself. Everything! The goods come in and then go out and neither I nor anyone else is allowed to go near them. Nor even the paperwork. Especially not the paperwork. Clarke Effendi does it all. “The less you know about it, the better,” he says. “If you don’t know anything, you can’t tell anyone anything. It’s better like that.” And,’ said the clerk, ‘I think it is better. Because the old bastard is up to something, you can be sure. And the less I know about it, the better.’

‘There is wisdom,’ said the Greek admiringly. ‘It’s a wise man who knows when it’s best not to know something!’

‘Of course, I have to know a bit,’ said the warehouse clerk. ‘I have to know when a consignment like that is coming in, so that I can make space for it. And it’s not just any sort of space; it’s got to be over in a corner, where people don’t come upon it by mischance. And it’s got to be in the usual place in case he wants to move it by dark. In fact, he usually does want to move it by dark. That’s another thing, you see. What people don’t see, they don’t think about, he says.

‘But once or twice I’ve had to be there to see to the moving — make sure the right boxes are collected. It would never do to have the wrong box picked up. And that would be easy to do in the dark. Of course, we’ve got torches, but still, it helps if someone who knows about it is there to see to it. Actually, he likes to see to that himself. Never trusts anybody else when it’s important. I suppose that’s why he does so well. Why he’s a rich man and I am not!’

‘There are costs to being rich,’ said the Greek. ‘That’s what I always tell my wife. You’ve got to be thinking about your money all the time.’

‘The risk!’ said the warehouse clerk.

‘Suppose it went wrong?’ said the Greek.

‘Ah, then you’re in trouble!’ said the clerk.

‘I’ll bet you didn’t say that to Clarke Effendi, though!’

‘You’d win your bet!’ said the clerk. ‘That’s another thing he says. “No silly questions, no sharp answers!”’

‘And that’s true, too,’ said the Greek.

‘Still, there are things that I know and that he doesn’t know. How to get hold of a reliable porter in Cairo, for example.’

‘Can’t trust the buggers!’ said the Greek.

‘You’ve got to stand over them. And although he’d prefer to do that himself, that’s not always possible.’

‘So you have to do it?’

‘That’s it!’

‘Even at night!’

‘Even at night. Especially at night!’

‘Because of the temptation to wander off and have a drink?’

‘He’d go mad!’

‘I’ll bet he would. But that’s what they’d do if you weren’t standing right behind them.’

‘You can’t afford for it to go wrong.’

‘Not when there’s a Pasha involved.’

‘Oh, so that’s the way the land lies, is it? I don’t envy you.’

‘Just occasionally. I don’t do it every time, of course, and I don’t know about the other times. But I know what I know.’

‘And you’re not saying!’ said the Greek, chuckling.

‘Too true, I’m not!’

‘Well I think he’s a lucky man to have you to call on.’

‘Well, I think he is, too. It’s not easy to get things done the way he likes them done. There’s more to it than he thinks. Just getting the stuff here is not that straightforward. It comes in by train, you see, and has to be fetched from the station. Nothing to it, you might think. Just a matter of porters. But porters have to be found, and porters have to be stood over, like I said, or else they’ll get it wrong. And then he’d go mad!’

‘Do you use the same porters every time?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I should think you would. If he’s like you say, you’d want to be sure of your porters. And if you’ve found some you know to be reliable, I think you’d stick with them.’

‘Well, I do, as a matter of fact.’

‘Go to the same ones every time?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I reckon you’ve done well if you’ve found some reliable ones.’

‘It’s not easy. In a place like Cairo. Where porters are always drifting away. Offer them some money and they’re off!’

‘Does he pay well?’

‘No.’

Georgiades pursed his lips. ‘That makes it tricky,’ he said.

‘It does. That’s what I always tell him. “You don’t know the half of it,” I say.’

‘He’s a lucky man to have you to rely on.’

Further along the street was a barber’s shop. Well, not quite a shop — this was a poor area — but certainly a barber. He worked from the pavement, where he had put a chair, an old cane chair, on which he sat his clients. His equipment was on the ground beside him: two pairs of scissors, one for hard work, the other for fine: a razor, of the cut-throat variety, a shaving brush, a tin bowl and a large pewter jug containing the hot water he had to fetch from the cafe up the road where Georgiades and the warehouse clerk went for their coffee. And there was a length of cloth, not overly clean, which he tied round the neck of his client. From time to time he shook it into the gutter.

There was always a circle of onlookers gathered round the chair, sitting on the pavement, offering advice or critical judgement or just generally chatting. The barber was good at chatting and the people who came to join him were regulars. Some passed the day there.

The Greek ambled along the street, paused when he saw the barber and hovered uncertainly. The chair was empty at the moment and the barber spread his apron cloth invitingly. Georgiades sat down. ‘Short back and sides,’ he said.

‘It’s pretty short already,’ said the barber doubtfully. ‘Are you sure you want a haircut?’

‘My wife says I need one.’

‘Perhaps she was thinking of your beard?’

‘I haven’t got one!’ protested Georgiades.

‘Maybe that’s the problem. You’ve got a lot of stubble there.’

‘My hair grows quickly!’

‘It does on some people.’

‘I shave every morning, you know, and by ten o’clock it looks as if I haven’t touched it.’

‘It’s the jowls — they hide the hair, and you can’t cut closely, and then as the day wears on, the hairs come back from behind the flesh.’

‘This is getting personal!’ said Georgiades.

‘No, no, it’s just a technical observation. I’m right, aren’t I?’ he appealed to the onlookers.

‘It’s true he’s a bit fleshy,’ one observer piped up.

‘I can’t help that!’

‘No, he can’t. And stop going on at him. Some people carry a lot of weight. It’s the way they are.’

‘It’s certainly the way I am,’ said Georgiades.

‘All he needs is a shave!’ someone else shouted.

‘You could be right,’ said the barber.

‘All right, a shave, then.’

‘Go on,’ the crowd advised. ‘Make it nice for his wife. She doesn’t want to be scraping herself against his bristles all the time. That’s the problem. It’s not his hair.’

‘A shave, then,’ said the barber. ‘As smooth as a baby’s bottom.’

After this promising beginning, the conversation flowed, and soon the Greek was in a position to ask about the porters.

‘Reliable ones,’ he stipulated.

‘You’ll be lucky!’

‘I know, but a chap who works in one of the warehouses here was telling me that he reckoned he’d found some.’

‘All the warehouses use porters!’

‘Yes, but some are better than others. This bloke I was talking to seemed to need especially good ones. He worked for a foreign Effendi, you see, who was always on to him.’

‘Would that be Nassir?’

‘It might be. I didn’t quite catch his name. But he said he worked for a foreign Effendi who was often away — a trader. Gum arabic, I think. And trocchee shells.’

‘That definitely was Nassir.’

‘Why do his porters have to be so special?’ asked someone. ‘That’s just ordinary work.’

‘Sometimes they have to move stuff at night,’ said Georgiades. ‘And then, I suppose they’re working without supervision.’

‘Why do they have to move the stuff at night?’

‘God knows! But apparently they do. Anyway it sounded as if he’d got some good porters, and I just wondered if anyone knew who they were? Because I could certainly use them.’

‘They come from outside, I think.’

He meant outside the quarter. Cairo was a very localized place as far as ordinary people were concerned.

‘They do mostly,’ said someone. ‘But I think he makes use of Abdul.’

‘Well, Abdul is very good. If you want someone who’s reliable, he’s your man.’

‘How could I get hold of him?’

‘You’ll find him just along the road. At the trough there. When he’s not working, that is, which is most of the time.’

Yet further along the road was another business conducted entirely on the pavement. It consisted of a large flat tray resting on a layer of cinders and filled with cooking oil, usually olive or sunflower. Beside the tray was a cloth on which were lying various pieces of meat and sundry vegetables. From time to time its attendant would drop a piece of meat or a few vegetables into the cooking fat. They would sizzle and turn brown. When they were done he would fish them out and hand them, usually on a piece of paper, to whoever had requested them. Then they would sit on the pavement and eat them.

For this was a restaurant. It did not cater for the exalted (it was not even like the place Georgiades and the warehouse clerk attended just along the road) but for porters, donkey-boys, warehouse workers and the humbler men who did menial jobs round about. And, like the barber’s shop, it was a humming social centre.

Georgiades stood over the tray, obviously tempted. The smell of frying onions rose enticingly into the air.

‘Try some!’ invited the cook.

Georgiades sat down. The cook ladled some onion slices on to a square of paper and put it in front of Georgiades.

‘Yes?’ said the cook anxiously.

‘Yes,’ said Georgiades, and handed the square back for more.

‘And something else?’

‘Aubergines?’ said Georgiades hopefully.

The cook pointed. ‘In the pot,’ he said.

Georgiades held out the square.

‘And …?’ said the cook.

‘Beans.’

‘Beans, yes. And …?’

Georgiades held up his hand. ‘No more,’ he said. ‘My wife says I eat too much anyway.’

‘How could she say that?’ said the cook, affecting amazement. ‘A slim fellow like you!’

‘That’s what I say. But somehow she’s not convinced.’

There were several other men squatting around the tray. They pointed out, in the friendly, intimate Egyptian way, the best aubergines and helped him to extract them from the pot.

‘One thing I do like,’ said Georgiades, ‘is a good aubergine! With onions, of course. They’re good for you, did you know that?’

‘Of course they’re good for you!’ said the cook. ‘They keep headaches off.’

‘I find they’re good for my back,’ said one of the customers.

There was some discussion about this.

‘You need onions if you’re a porter,’ said the Greek.

‘You do,’ various people assented.

‘Talking of porters,’ said the Greek, ‘is Abdul here, by any chance?’

A man raised his hand. He had a great strap round his shoulders to assist carrying.

‘You look a big, fine fellow,’ said the Greek.

The porter grinned. ‘What is it this time?’ he said. ‘A piano?’

‘I’ll bet you could manage it.’

‘I could.’

He meant single-handed.

‘I’ll be back for you!’ said Georgiades.

In fact, someone else called for Abdul, and off he went.

Later in the afternoon, however, he returned. The Greek had eaten a lot of aubergines by that time and had gone away. But he was standing at the edge of the little square, from where he could keep an eye on the pavement restaurant, and when Abdul reappeared, he went up to him and suggested a beer. Strictly speaking, as a good Muslim, he shouldn’t touch alcohol, but, as he said, in his job you needed a lot of liquid, so he went off with Georgiades around the corner.

‘I could have a job for you,’ said the Greek. ‘It’s a big one, and there’s big money in it. For a good porter. A reliable man who knows how to keep his mouth shut.’

‘Big money, did you say?’

The Greek nodded.

‘I’m not a fussy man,’ said Abdul.

‘It might mean working at night.’

‘One of those, is it?’

‘Well, you know how it is. These rich men don’t want their right hand to know what their left is doing!’

‘I can keep my mouth shut.’

‘That’s important.’

‘Carpets, is it?’

‘Heavier.’

‘No problem.’

‘The thing is, my boss insists that his porters have got to be absolutely reliable.’

‘He can rely on me,’ said Abdul.

‘He likes recommended people. Your name was mentioned to me by someone who manages a warehouse near here. Nassir, his name was …’

‘I know Nassir.’

‘You’ve done jobs for him before, I gather?’

‘I have.’

‘He says he might be needing you in the next few days. I wouldn’t want to clash with him. I mean, he’d done me a favour by putting me on to you. So just tell me, will you, when his job comes up? And I’ll see we keep clear of it. I’ll be around here for a while, so I’ll be sticking my head in at the eats place and you can tell me there.’

Owen and Mahmoud were walking across the midan when they ran into Karim. Mahmoud introduced them. ‘This is my friend, Captain Owen,’ he said.

‘Hello!’ said Karim. ‘Pleased to meet you. Are you really a captain?’

‘Well, I was,’ said Owen. ‘But not now.’

‘Have you given it up?’

‘Yes, that’s right. I’ve given it up. Some time ago, actually.’

‘Does that mean you were a soldier?’

‘Yes. In India.’

‘India,’ said Karim uncertainly. ‘Where is that? Is it near Cairo?’

‘A long way away from Cairo, actually. It’s over the sea. You’d have to go on a ship.’

‘I’ve never been on a ship,’ said Karim. ‘But I’ve been in a boat. On the river.’

‘It’s like that,’ said Owen. ‘Only the sea is much, much bigger.’

‘I would like to go on the sea.’

‘Perhaps one day you will.’

Karim contemplated the prospect. But then the distance in time and space was too much for him. He lost interest. His attention was caught by the parcel Owen was carrying. ‘What is that parcel?’ he asked.

‘It is a present,’ said Owen. ‘A present for a little girl.’

‘Can I see it?’

Owen unwrapped it.

‘I know what it is,’ said Karim. ‘It’s a box.’ He took it from Owen and fondled it. ‘It is a nice box,’ he said. ‘All smooth.’ He stroked it, thinking. ‘I know what it is!’ he said suddenly. ‘It is a box like Soraya had. Only smaller, much smaller.’

‘It is a plaything only,’ said Owen.

Karim nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘for a child. But it is like Soraya’s box. Only smaller. She showed me her box once, you know. She opened it and let me look in. There were all sorts of nice things in it. Things she had made. There was a little …’

He stopped, and frowned.

‘A little thing,’ he said. ‘I don’t know its name. It was a little patch of cloth. Only about this wide.’ He indicated with his hands. ‘And soft, very soft. She let me feel it. She said she would make me one. I wanted her to make me one.’ He imitated putting it to his face. ‘So soft,’ he said. ‘So soft. Like Soraya.’

‘Like Soraya?’

‘Soft,’ said Karim, ‘so soft.’

‘You touched her?’

‘She let me touch her. She let me hold her hand. It was very nice. And when she touched me — she touched my face — her hand was so soft. So gentle! No one had ever touched me like that before. I said that. I told her that. And … and she cried! I don’t know why she cried! Do you know why she cried?’

‘I can guess,’ said Owen.

‘It was a little square,’ Karim said. ‘She had sewn it herself. There were little beads on it. They were made of glass and they sparkled in the sun. It was lovely. I asked her to make me one, and she said she would. I wonder what has happened to it. They have taken all her things away, you know. When she left. With the box.’

‘Did you see her go?’

‘No. It happened one night. After I had gone to bed. She left, and she took her box with her. And that little thing — I don’t know what you call it — must have been inside. And I don’t think she ever made one for me. Or perhaps she did? And it’s lying around somewhere. I’ll ask my mother if she’s seen it.’

‘Pity me, Mahmoud!’

It was his old friend from student days.

‘Willingly; but why should I pity you, Idris?’

‘I told you a lie yesterday, Mahmoud.’

‘One of many, I am sure; but which one specifically?’

‘I told you I was a trader in trocchee shells.’

‘And are you not?’

‘Oh, I am. But also I am not.’

‘But that is not a lie, Idris. That is merely a half-truth.’

‘Put it another way, Mahmoud: I have not one job, but two.’

‘But, Idris, this is astonishing. Two jobs! And are both of them paid? You must be on your way to riches!’

‘I should be so lucky! I am barely paid enough for one.’

‘It will build up, Idris, I am sure.’

‘But slowly. And the trouble is, Mahmoud, that there is no gain without pain.’

‘You have to work for it?’

‘Worse. A consignment has just arrived. And when it arrives, it has to be split.’

‘That is not an insurmountable problem, Idris.’

‘And I have to split it.’

‘It is still not insurmountable, Idris. Challenging, possibly, but not impossible.’

‘One part has to go to Cairo. The other to the Sudan.’

‘Difficult, but not-’

‘And I have to go with it.’

‘To the Sudan?’

‘If it was to Cairo, there would be no problem.’

‘Still …’

‘The Sudan, Mahmoud, the Sudan! Where giant scorpions lie in waiting. And lizards as large as crocodiles. And flies, Mahmoud, flies in abundance!’

‘But are you not used to flies?’

‘Not flies like these. They are cannibal flies, Mahmoud. They consume you.’

‘Not flies, Idris, not flies!’

‘Mosquitoes, then. Truly malignant ones. The sort that give you malaria by a stab. And the sand, Mahmoud, and the heat. Where the water, if there is any, runs already hot from the taps! I shall die, Mahmoud, I shall die!’

‘Again, Idris, I wonder if you have completely understood. Are you sure you have to send part of the consignment to the Sudan? Is not the Sudan where trocchee shells come from, not go to?’

‘I am not talking about trocchee shells.’

‘No? What are you talking about, then?’

‘That, I cannot reveal to you.’

‘All right, be like that, then!’

‘I told you I have two jobs. The trocchee shells are one. This is another.’

‘So it is not trocchee shells that you are dividing?’

‘No. Mahmoud, it does not matter what I am dividing. I don’t want to go to the Sudan!’

‘Why go, then?

‘Duty.’

‘Oh, come, Idris!’

‘You and I both serve a great ideal, Mahmoud. Duty calls. In a hell-hole like the Sudan, the call is muted, I will allow: but it is still there. I wish it weren’t. Oh, how I wish it weren’t!’

‘Have courage, man; you may return alive.’

‘Or I may not.’

‘Whereabouts in the Sudan are you bound for?’

‘I don’t know, exactly. Somewhere between the Red Sea Hills and Port Sudan. Between the Devil and the deep sea, Mahmoud. Both are equally undesirable.’

‘Well, Idris, when you get there, will you send me a postcard, so that I will know where to come to collect your body?’

‘Mahmoud, is it even possible to send postcards in the Sudan?’

‘Of course it is. There is a very good postal service there.’

‘I will send you one, then. In fact, I will send you more than one. So that you will know that my life still flickers.’

As Mahmoud walked away, he felt slightly uncomfortable. If Idris did send him a postcard, he would know where Idris had gone — and, presumably, where his part of the consignment had gone, too.

Did that matter? Mahmoud rather feared that it did. Because what was this mysterious consignment? It couldn’t be ordinary goods, or Idris would have said. It was something he had to be guarded about. So what could it be?

Mahmoud had an uneasy suspicion that it might be arms. Idris appeared to have been sent on some sort of political mission. He had always been a bit of a hot-head. At university he had always taken up extreme positions. Well, was that so bad? reflected Mahmoud. So had he himself. So had most students.

But Idris had always carried them further than most of their friends, had talked more wildly, had always been in the forefront of demonstration against the government. But that was just Idris. Except that Idris had gone on for longer, had gone on after he had left university, when most others had let themselves be swallowed up by work. They had sunk into respectable, responsible jobs — as Mahmoud had himself. True, he had kept the ideal burning bright, had constantly worked for it in his off-duty moments. But that was not quite the same as devoting your life to it full-time. Idris had committed himself totally to the cause and gone on committing himself. You shouldn’t let yourself be fooled by his flippant manner. Idris wasn’t the fool he sometimes pretended to be.

This business that he was presently engaged in, whatever it was, was serious. There could be no doubt about that. And it was, of course, political.

Nothing wrong with that, in Mahmoud’s eyes. Except … except that a lot depended on how it was political. If it was violent, Mahmoud didn’t like it. He had a distaste for any form of terrorist or quasi-terrorist activity. Well, he would, wouldn’t he, as a member of the Parquet. He wanted change but he wanted it to come by peaceful means. He was used, of course, to being accused of siding with the Pashas and the British. And there was, he had to recognize, some truth in the change. But, committed as he was to change, he was also committed to the law. That, after all, was why he had chosen to become a lawyer. He believed that through the law his vision of a better Egypt could be accomplished. Through politics, yes, but above all through the law. Politics in the end had to be subject to the law. And he knew that too often in Egypt it wasn’t.

He had thought it through over and over and had arrived at a position which satisfied him. But every now and then something cropped up which jarred it. As now. Should he follow up what Idris had let slip and see if there really was something questionable, illegal, in what he was doing? And did it matter if there was? There were lots of things that for an Egyptian official it was convenient not to know. Was he making too much of this? Should he not just forget about it?

He knew what the worldly wise Owen would say: at least wait for the postcard!