At last a man came pushing through the crowd. He looked worried. ‘Effendis?’
‘Salaam Aleikhum,’ said Owen and Mahmoud together, politely.
‘And to you, Salaam!’ returned the omda.
‘I am from the Parquet,’ said Mahmoud, ‘and this is the Mamur Zapt.’
There was no doubt about the Mamur Zapt being known to the omda. He became tense. ‘You come from Cairo?’ he said. ‘It is a long way.’
‘Even there we hear of things. We hear, for example, that children have gone missing from your village.’
The omda went still. ‘One of them went to get married,’ he said, after a moment.
‘So it is said. And the other?’
‘I do not know.’
‘The one who went to get married: do you know the name of the man to whom she was to be married or the place of her new home? No? Is that the way things are done in Denderah?’
The omda was silent for a moment. ‘It is the way they were done on this occasion,’ he said quietly. ‘But not the way they should have been done. I knew nothing about it until after she was gone.’
‘Did you not make enquiries?’
‘We wondered, and asked. But her father said that he had received a good offer and that the matter had to be closed quickly.’
‘Without any celebration?’
‘There would be celebrations, her father told us. But they could be elsewhere.’
‘How could you be sure she was to be wed?’
‘She took her bride box, Effendi.’
‘And so you thought that …?’
‘What else could it mean?’
‘I have seen the bride box,’ said Mahmoud. ‘But not the things that she put in it. Have you seen them?’
‘No, Effendi!’ said the omda, shocked. ‘How could we?’
‘I think they may have been tipped out and left. In which case they must be lying around somewhere. Perhaps not far from the village. And if they were left like that, some of them may have been found and brought back here. Have they been?’
The omda, still shocked, turned to the villagers. ‘Have they?’ he asked.
There was a mutter of denial.
‘Look for them,’ said Mahmoud. ‘And if you find them, bring them to me. No one will be punished just for having these things, but I need to know about them.’
‘They were Soraya’s things!’ a woman said indignantly. ‘She was making ready for her wedding. They should not have been treated like that!’
‘Where is Soraya?’ someone asked.
Owen and Mahmoud exchanged glances. Owen nodded.
‘She is dead,’ said Mahmoud.
Mustapha’s new wife collapsed, weeping. Mustapha bowed his head to the ground and seemed to be trying to push his face into the sand. Some women at the back of the crowd began to wail.
There was no lock-up in the village. There was no constable, either. Mahmoud told Mustapha and his wife to stay in their house and made the omda responsible for seeing to it. Then he and Owen walked over to the village well and sat down on the little mud-brick wall that was built around it. People would come to them, they knew; but it would take time.
First, the omda himself came. ‘Would Your Excellencies like tea?’ he said anxiously. ‘Or perhaps beer?’
‘No beer, thank you,’ said Mahmoud.
Owen shook his head. ‘Tea would be welcome,’ he said.
Shortly afterwards a woman brought them tea, the bitter, black tea of the fellahin, on a wicker work tray. Afterwards she continued to stand there.
‘Yes?’
‘The body needs seeing to, Effendi,’ she said.
It was a rule that the body should be buried the day the person died.
‘That cannot be in this case,’ said Mahmoud. ‘The body is in Cairo. It is being seen to.’
‘It should be seen to by those that knew her,’ said the woman.
‘That cannot be.’
The woman stood for a while, then accepted it. ‘And what of Leila?’ she asked.
‘Leila is in Cairo, too,’ said Owen. ‘She is well and in safe hands.’
‘God be praised!’
‘Perform such rites as you can,’ said Mahmoud.
The woman nodded and went away and shortly afterwards the wailing rose in volume. It sounded as if all the women of the village were taking part — and perhaps they were.
The wailing continued all night and was still going on when they woke up the next morning. They had been taken to a house to spend the night and given food. In the morning when they went out the women were already busy drawing up water from the well.
Owen and Mahmoud went and stood by them.
‘Is it true, Effendi, what you said about Leila?’ one of them asked quietly.
‘It is true, yes.’
‘Inshallah! God be praised!’
‘How did it come about that she was allowed to go? What sort of village is this?’
‘No one knew, Effendi. It was all done by the father and he told no one else. We had heard that slavers were in the district but no one had seen them. Mustapha must have sought them out.’
‘And Soraya? The same?’
‘Perhaps, Effendi. I do not know. She had disappeared some days before. Again in the night, and silently. Again it was her father’s doing. But, Effendi …’
‘Yes?’
‘The cases are not the same. Soraya must have thought she was going to be wed, for she took her bride box with her. Perhaps her father had told her some story.’
‘And then sold her to the slavers?’
‘Perhaps. But …’
‘Yes?’
‘Would the slavers have killed a pretty girl? Surely not! They would have kept her alive and sold her. She would have fetched a good price.’
‘I thought the slavers had gone from Egypt,’ Mahmoud said. ‘How comes it that they are here?’
‘I don’t know. I had thought those days were over, too. I remember when I was a child — well, we would see the slaving caravans sometimes. And then we would run indoors and our mothers would hide us. And they would say to their husbands: “If my child goes, you will not wake up tomorrow!” I remember my own mother saying that. Not that my father would have sold us.’ The woman laughed, tenderly. ‘He wouldn’t have sold me for the world. But some men would. Well, that was long ago! Those days are past.’
‘They should be,’ said Mahmoud. ‘How comes it that they are not?’
‘It is the Pashas!’ said the woman bitterly. ‘There is one law for the rich and another for the poor. And what makes the law is money.’
Owen and Mahmoud continued to sit on at the well. They both knew that it was the way you had to do business in an Egyptian village. It was no good going round and questioning as you might in Cairo. In the village you had to wait for them to come to you. And there was a lot of thinking to be done before that would happen.
Although they were in the shade of the palms, the heat increased steadily. The centre of the village was now almost deserted. And yet there was something agreeable about just sitting there dozing. The doves gurgled in the palm trees, there was the occasional bray of a donkey and always, in the background, the continual creak of the water wheel by the river. It was peaceful, and even Mahmoud, with all the restlessness of a city dweller, succumbed to the effect.
At last the omda came up again and hovered uneasily. ‘What is it that Your Excellencies wish to know, Effendis?’ he asked anxiously.
‘About the slavers,’ said Owen.
‘If I could tell you, I would, Effendi, but there is little to tell. We heard that they were in the area and I couldn’t believe it. They have not been here since my father’s time. But so it was whispered. And the whispers grew. “How can this be?” I asked. But no one could answer me. “Keep the children indoors!” I said. And it was done. Except that Mustapha must have seen his chance and went out to seek them. Effendi, I cannot understand such evil! But this is a poor village and when men are in need they do evil things.’