Owen was hovering around, keeping an eye on new arrivals when he saw Karim again. This time he was carrying a gun.
‘That’s a fine gun!’ said Owen.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ said Karim proudly. ‘It’s one of the new ones, with the new improved sights.’
‘May I look?’
It was one of the new service rifles, which were only just being issued to the army. Owen wondered how it had been obtained. He squinted through the new sights.
‘Be careful!’ said Karim anxiously.
‘It’s not loaded, is it?’
‘No, but my mother says you’ve got to be very careful with guns. No loaded guns in the house! Nor anywhere where there are people. That’s the rule and she’s very strict about it. It’s been the rule ever since Ibrahim died.’
‘Ibrahim?’
‘From my mother’s side of the family. He used to come up and see my father a lot. That was when we lived in the old house. And when he came he used to let me play with his gun. Well, one day I was playing with it, when it went off. And Ibrahim fell down. And then …’
He stopped.
‘And then?’ prompted Owen.
Karim looked puzzled. ‘I don’t remember,’ he said. ‘I don’t always remember things. My mother says I must try harder. It’s important, she says. And I do remember some things. But I don’t remember others. I do remember, though, that Ibrahim fell down. And then my mother took the gun away from me. I cried, but she said I was too small. So she took it away and made the rule. No guns in the house!’
‘A very sensible rule,’ said Owen. ‘But what about Ibrahim?’
‘I don’t remember. He didn’t come to the house again. He fell down. And perhaps he was put in a box? Or was it someone else who was put in a box? I think he was just wrapped up. I don’t remember. But my father was very angry and said I had to go. And my mother said it wasn’t my fault. Ibrahim ought to have known better. And she said that if I went she would go with me.
‘So she and I went to the other house. And my father went away up to Cairo. And Ibrahim stopped coming. But sometimes people do come up from the Sudan still. Only, of course, it’s no good them going to the old house these days. My father’s not there. So they come to us. My mother likes to see them and have a good chat. About the family and that sort of thing. And then she sends them away. I don’t know where to. Perhaps to Cairo? I think they want to see my father. There’s a lot of business to do. Only now, of course, they have to go up to Cairo, which is much further for them, and they don’t like it. My mother says it would be better if my father came down here. But he won’t. I think it may be because of me.’
‘That would be a pity,’ said Owen.
‘That is what Soraya said. And my mother was very angry, and said that a Pasha did not need to take instruction from a servant girl.’
A man came up at that point and spoke to Karim. He gestured at the gun. ‘Better let me have that,’ he said.
‘I want to keep it,’ said Karim sulkily.
‘Tamuz says, let him keep it. He will give it to you on the way home.’
‘Ah!’ said Owen. ‘So Tamuz is here now?’
The man looked at him coolly.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Tamuz is here.’
‘And the boxes?’
‘I don’t know anything about boxes,’ said the man.
Mahmoud set off early the next morning, while it was still dark, for the Pasha’s lady’s house. Riding in the cool made it much more pleasant and the journey did not seem so long this time. By the time it grew light he was nearly at the house and able to find the last part of the way easily.
‘You are back,’ said the Pasha’s lady.
‘The police are always back,’ said Mahmoud, ‘when they have not been told correctly when they first came.’
The lady raised her eyebrows.
‘What is this?’ she said.
‘You did not tell me all,’ said Mahmoud.
‘All?’ said the lady bitterly. ‘That would be a long story!’
‘And you took care that I should not hear it,’ said Mahmoud. ‘You sent Suleiman away.’
‘I sent Suleiman away because I had work for him to do. Do you think the world stops for you, Mr Parquet man?’
‘I wished to see him. With the others.’
‘You will have to wait, then. For he is with my family in the Sudan. And will not come back until I tell him to.’
‘That is disappointing,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Because this is an important matter.’
‘Is it to do with that girl?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then that is not important. She was merely a servant girl.’
‘To be commanded,’ said Mahmoud. ‘But not to be killed.’
‘The men who killed her are, no doubt, evil men; but not without wit.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because they sent her to my husband.’
‘Wit?’
‘She was a Sudani. And he loves Sudanis. Doesn’t he?’
‘He loved you once.’
‘And then he didn’t any more.’
‘Are you saying he loved someone else? A Sudani?’
‘It may be, for all I know.’
‘Soraya?’
She startled. ‘Soraya! He might have used her. But I don’t think he would have loved her. She was just a servant girl.’
‘I wondered why you sent her away?’
‘Not because of my husband, I assure you!’ said the lady drily. ‘I would lay many charges against him, but not that!’
‘Why did you send her away?’
‘She was presumptuous. She presumed too much.’
‘In what way?’
She was silent. Then she said: ‘I prefer not to tell you.’
‘Presumptuous, I would accept as a reason for dismissal from your service. But I would like an instance of it.’
‘She brought her bride box.’
‘But that was the second time that she came. What of the first?’
‘There were indications,’ she said, after a moment.
‘Indications? Of what?’ He waited. ‘You will have to tell me in the end. Was it Karim?’
‘Perhaps,’ she said.
‘You will have to tell me.’
She was silent, Then: ‘Karim is … backward. In all things. In this as in other things. He did not understand what she was doing to him. I had to protect him.’
‘So you sent her away?’
‘I had to end it.’
‘But then you decided not to. You called her back.’
‘I was foolish. It was ended. I should have let it stay like that. But … he missed her. I could see that. A mother knows. He became difficult. The heart went out of him. I thought it would go away, but it didn’t. So I thought …’
She made an impatient gesture with her hand, as if sweeping it away. ‘I thought, perhaps after all it was for the good. Or could be for the good if I could control it. If she gave him pleasure, well, why not? There was not much pleasure in his life. And she was kind to him, I could see that. And gradually in him something stirred. I could see that, too. And in a way I rejoiced at it. Do not laugh at me. I was foolish, I know. But a mother of a child like mine always hopes — can’t not hope — that perhaps by some miracle her son will become a man. A foolish hope in the case of Karim, I know, but … but you can’t help hoping. And it seemed to be happening, because of Soraya. So … so I sent for her again. Hoping that … but knowing inside that …’ She made the gesture again, fiercely. ‘I was foolish. As I have said.’
‘You found you could not control it?’
‘Who can control these things?’
Again the gesture: dismissal, but also despair.
‘And Soraya, too, perhaps, was foolish?’ suggested Mahmoud. ‘For she, too, had hopes.’
‘She set her hopes too high. They were not realistic. What would Karim’s father, his father’s family, have said? A Pasha’s son and a servant girl! And what — given the way that Karim was — what might they bring into the family? Another monster? That is how he, and they, would have seen it. Another monster to begin, perhaps, a line of monsters. No, I could not let this happen. I could not do that, even to my husband! So I sent her away again. And broke Karim’s heart.’