I had been riding ahead of Salmawi on the road but he drew alongside me as we were crossing a small water channel, and I asked him, 'Salmawi, do you know why the sheikh wants to see me?'
'All I know is what I told Your Excellency. Maybe he wants to talk to you about the condition of Miss…'
His deep voice trembled suddenly, making me think that he was on the verge of tears.
Pulling up my horse, I asked him, in amazement, 'What's going on, Corporal?'
He bowed his head and said, controlling himself, 'Forgive me, Excellency. I was just thinking. Sheikh Yahya only saw the young lady once, and when he was angry then at… And all the same, he loved her and thought to send her the medicines. If Your Excellency had seen how she was in the caravan! She would talk with the troops and the Siwan women and the Bedouin women and their children, God knows in what language. She didn't speak their language and they didn't understand hers but all the same they talked to one another in words, signs and laughter throughout the trip. When she got one of her coughing fits, some of the women would weep to see her going off far away on her own.'
I spurred my horse and shot forwards, Salmawi following me Enough! Enough! Enough! The horse was galloping and I was looking straight ahead, paying no attention to the insults of the zaggala or to the fact that we were passing Gouba Spring, and I realized that we had passed it only when I saw the columns of the temple of Umm Ebeida. All the disasters had started here!
I was making straight for the temple at a fast pace but my guide called out to me from behind as he tried to catch up, 'Wait, Excellency! Where are you going? It's this way.'
He pointed to a narrow path that turned off to the left, so I returned and followed him.
Eventually we found ourselves at the door to the sheikh's garden. A small garden compared to those we had passed; from the surrounding wall I calculated that it couldn't be more than half a feddan. Salmawi clapped his hands and called out a few phrases and a boy appeared, who kept his gaze fixed on me while Salmawi spoke to him. The boy said nothing but disappeared and after a little returned and gestured to us to follow him.
At the entrance to the garden were many palms, as usual, and some fruit trees, which had not yet borne fruit. Behind these was a jungle of olives. Scents, most of which I could not distinguish, reached my nose. A few moments after passing through the door, the boy pointed out to us reed mats on the ground on which cushions had been arranged in the shade of jostling palms. I sat and Salmawi remained standing, and when I gestured to him to sit, he continued to remain at a distance, squatting on the ground as though he might get up at any moment. And indeed, he did leap up to receive the sheikh, and I stood too.
Sheikh Yahya walked towards us slowly, leaning on his stick, and Salmawi went up to him, shaking his hand and saying, 'Peace be upon you, Master,' and tried to kiss his hand, but the sheikh pulled it quickly away.
I too went forwards and shook his hand, and he kept mine in his for a moment while observing me from behind his glasses with a searching look. Then he said, 'Sit down.'
I had seen him before, with a delegation of agwad on my arrival, then many times at Friday prayer, where his glasses had caught my attention, though I couldn't recall that I'd spoken with him. It seemed to me that he'd aged since the last time I saw him at the mosque. In any case, he was certainly over eighty.
Salmawi took his arm and helped him to sit on one of the cushions, and the sheikh leant his back against a palm tree and said with a smile, 'Thank you, Salmawi. You could see that I need help.'
The corporal replied, 'On the contrary, it is we who need your help, Master.'
Addressing him with some acerbity, the sheikh asked, 'What's all this "Master" nonsense, Salmawi? I'm not one of God's Chosen Friends. Enough of such talk.'
The sheikh turned his gaze to me where I sat opposite him and directed his words to me. 'The message was delayed in getting to you, Mr Commissioner. Thank God you didn't go out on patrol yesterday.'
Salmawi, who had once more squatted down between me and the sheikh, said, 'I swear I knew in my heart it was you who sent the message, Master. But how did you learn of the plot they'd hatched?'
The sheikh muttered, 'Master! Master!' and I looked at Salmawi and gestured a warning at him, so he got up of his own accord and sat down far enough away for him not to be able to hear our conversation.
Once Salmawi had moved away, the sheikh turned to me and said, 'Nothing's a secret in this town. Have you seen the boys who go around everywhere, moving among the houses and the gardens? No one pays any attention to them but they know everything, great and small, and they pass on the most important news.'
Then, after a moment's silence, he addressed me with a line of verse:
He who does good, ne'er are his rewards expunged.
God's pact with Man is never broken.
'You saved a boy called, like you, Mahmoud, so he in turn wanted to save you. It was he who brought me yesterday the information that you were intending to go out on patrol, and it was from him too that I learnt they were lying in wait for you.'
'Who are they?'
The sheikh shook his head, saying, 'That is something I will not tell, Mr Commissioner. I do not betray my people or inform on them. It is enough that you should take your precautions.'
He seemed distracted for a moment. Then he said, 'And you must give me an undertaking too that you will not look for the boy Mahmoud or try to interrogate him.'
'Rest assured, Sheikh Yahya,' I said. 'I promise you I will neither look for him nor interrogate him. I thank you both for thinking of saving me.'
'Don't thank me but be on your guard,' he replied. 'That will save you and us more blood.'
Without meaning to I blurted out, 'I'm not afraid of death!'
He responded quietly, 'Indeed, you long for it.'
'Do you know men's thoughts too?' I asked.
'Only the devils eavesdrop on those, Mr Commissioner, and I am not, thank God, one of them. But why did you announce in the courtyard of the police station for all to hear that you were going out on patrol at night? It had been your habit earlier to ride out into the desert, sometimes alone, sometimes with your troops, and your patrols have kept thieves from the oasis. But you used not to tell anyone. So why did you do so yesterday when you knew your life was in danger? I cannot read what is in men's minds, for only God, most glorious, knows that, Mr Commissioner, but I can read what you do and what you say.'
Having said this, he occupied himself with fixing firmly in place the string that tied his glasses to his ear. Then he fell silent.
After a while, I said, 'So be it. But you too, two days ago, refused to meet my wife and her sister and said of me things that were repeated to me. I know too that, like all the people of the oasis, you do not love me. So what made you suddenly concerned for my life, after the firing of the cannon and after what happened to Maleeka?'
His face flushed with sudden anger as he said, 'Why do you not stay silent? Why open that subject? Maleeka wasn't just my niece; she was dearer to me than the most precious of my daughters!'
Like one stung, I shouted, 'Your niece? I didn't even know she was your relative. No one told me.'