After a while, he realized that the sand had given way to cultivated fields of durra. The green was more soothing on the eye. But then the durra grew taller and he was soon riding through great banks of it, which trapped the heat and attracted the insects. They came in swarms and lay black on the neck of the donkey, on the thighs of his trousers and on his arms. He had to keep brushing them from his face. It was sheer misery. As he had known it would be!
He told himself it was only for a short time, that he would arrest the men and then get back to Cairo. And never, never leave Cairo again! Much less return to Upper Egypt.
The clerk urged his donkey up alongside Mahmoud.
‘Effendi, they will kill me!’
‘No, they won’t.
‘They will see my face and know me.’
‘Cover your face, then.’
‘They will still know me,’ said the clerk despondently.
‘I will find a way that you can see and not be seen.’
Happier, but not happy, the clerk fell back.
Ahead of him, through the sand, he saw a large white house.
He stopped and told the clerk to stay out of sight. Then he went on. There was a bell-rope by the door. He pulled. After some minutes a man came to the door.
‘The Pasha? He’s not here.’
‘Very well, then. Take me to the one in charge.’
The servant slipped away and sometime later another man appeared. He looked at Mahmoud suspiciously and disdainfully.
‘The Pasha is not at home.’
‘No? That is a pity, for there are questions I have to put to him.’
‘You will have to put them in Cairo, then.’
Mahmoud was irked. This was no way to receive a stranger. And most unusual.
‘Perhaps you can help me.’
‘I don’t think so.’
Mahmoud, tired after his long ride, boiled over. ‘This is the Parquet. I come on the Khedive’s business. Summon all the servants!’
The man hesitated. ‘The Pasha …’
‘I am here in the Pasha’s interest. I have spoken with the Pasha.’
‘They are in the fields …’
‘Fetch them from the fields, then.’
‘It will take some time.’
‘I will wait. But I do not propose to wait long. If they are not here shortly I will put you in the caracol.’
The man flinched. ‘They will be here,’ he said.
‘In the yard. I want them in the yard.’
‘In the yard,’ repeated the man.
He did not offer to take Mahmoud into the house and Mahmoud was annoyed about this, too. It was rank discourtesy.
After some time a man came and took his donkey. Mahmoud followed him round the side of the house into a large yard where there was a drinking trough. The donkey bent to it greedily.
Another servant, an older man, came out of the house bringing a jug of lemonade.
‘It is a hot day, Effendi,’ he said. ‘Take some refreshment.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mahmoud. ‘I had begun to think that manners had been forgotten in the south.’
‘Don’t bother about him,’ the man said, jerking his head after his departed superior. ‘He’s always like that. Is it true you wish to speak to the men?’
Mahmoud nodded.
‘They won’t be sorry if it means that they can finish earlier. What was it that you wished to see them about?’
Mahmoud considered; then, thinking there was nothing to be lost, said: ‘It concerns a bride box.’
‘A bride box!’
‘One that was put on the train.’
‘Effendi, I think you must be mistaken. There are no bride boxes here. Nor are there likely to be.’ He stopped short, as if he had been about to say something he shouldn’t. ‘There are no young girls here of the right age,’ he said. But that was not, Mahmoud was sure, what he had been going to say. ‘Why a bride box, Effendi?’ he asked.
‘One that was put on the train. And sent to the Pasha.’
‘Ah. Now I understand. But, Effendi, you are still mistaken. No bride box has been sent from here. I would have known if there had been.’
‘The men who put it on the train said they were from here.’
The servant shook his head. ‘Effendi, I still find that hard to understand. Men do not come and go from here just as they wish. It means a day out of the fields and Ismail would not let that happen.’
‘Ismail is the man in charge?’
‘You have seen what he is like.’
‘Nevertheless, that is what the men said. They even gave the Pasha’s name, Ali Maher.’
‘Ali Maher is certainly the Pasha here. But why, Effendi, would he be sending a box to himself? In Cairo?’
‘That is what I am trying to find out.’
‘Perhaps he intends to get married again? And his eye has alighted on some girl? But if that is so, I do not know of it. And surely I would …’
‘There are questions to be asked,’ said Mahmoud.
‘Evidently,’ said the servant, still shaking his head.
Men began to assemble in the yard. Mahmoud went for a walk around the outhouses. There were quite a few of them. The estate was obviously a large one.
In one of the buildings stood some carts, used for bringing in the durra. One had a half-awning which covered most of the cart. It would do.
He went back round the house to where he had left the clerk. He found him sitting in the shade beneath a bush.
‘Come with me,’ he said and then, choosing his moment when there was no one to see, led him round to the cart with the half-awning and told him to get inside. Part of the awning was rolled back and the clerk could hide under it.
Mahmoud went back into the yard. ‘Are the men all here?’ he asked.
Ismail nodded sourly.
‘Right, I will speak to them.’
He looked at the men. There were about twenty of them, all in short galabeyas, showing their arms and legs burnt black by the sun. ‘I need something to stand on.’
He beckoned to two of the men and then went into the outhouse. ‘This one will do,’ he said.
The men took the cart with the half-awning and the clerk round into the yard.
Mahmoud climbed up on to the cart. ‘Which of you has been to the station at Denderah in the past fortnight?’
They looked at him blankly.
Mahmoud sighed and made them file past him. ‘Can you see them?’ he whispered to the clerk.
‘Effendi, I can see them,’ the clerk whispered back. ‘But the men who came to the station are not amongst them!’
‘Look once more!’
He made the men file past again, but with the same result. ‘Effendi, I do not see them,’ said the clerk worriedly. ‘I really don’t!’
‘Are all the men here?’ Mahmoud asked Ismail.
‘They are all here, Effendi.’
Mahmoud got down from the cart and walked over to the men. ‘Are you all here?’ he asked. ‘No one is missing?’
The men looked at each other. ‘No one is missing, Effendi. We are all here.’
Mahmoud was nonplussed. He had counted on the clerk being able to identify them. He made them file past once more but again drew a blank. He knew he would have to let them go.
He saw Ismail looking at him with an air of triumph, and made one last attempt. ‘None of you has been to Denderah recently?’
They looked at him blankly.
‘It concerns a bride box,’ he said.
There was a flicker of interest.
‘A bride box which was taken to the station in Denderah and put on the train.’
He was losing them. Bride boxes were within their experience; trains, however …
‘And sent to the Pasha,’ he tried desperately.
That was interesting. It was even funny. A bride box! For the Pasha!
But it didn’t register particularly with the men as it should have.
‘They can go now?’ asked Ismail, almost insolently.
Mahmoud made one last try. ‘Have any of you a bride box in your house?’
One or two nodded.
‘And still have? None have been sent away lately?’
They shook their heads.
‘Effendi,’ said Ismail, ‘there is another consideration. To take a bride box to the station at Denderah would require a cart. A cart could come only from here and no cart could be moved without my permission. My permission has not been given. Nor has it been sought. You are asking at the wrong place; asking the wrong people.’