Trust me, ya Hajj, she said. Allahu yia’alam, this is no trick. Don’t go. Not just because of me or my people. Think of the Ras. If, just if, something does happen and the police are there and they catch you all together, it’ll be the end of the whole place. They won’t leave it standing — it’ll be finished.
Hajj Fahmy broke into a smile. Zindi, he said playfully, you’ve been having your bad dreams again.
She dropped her hands hopelessly. So you’ll go? she said.
He thumped her on the back and laughed: Come and have some tea. It won’t be as good as yours, but it won’t be bad.
Zindi turned away from him and went quickly across the courtyard to Alu. She reached up, caught his shuttle strings and said very rapidly in Hindi: Alu, don’t go. Don’t let them go today. You can stop them if you try. If anything happens, their blood will be on your hands.
Slowly Alu shook his head. There’s nothing I can do, he said. You know that. I don’t want to go myself. It’s not in my hands.
Hajj Fahmy came up and stood beside her. Stop running about, Zindi, he said. Come and have some tea and cool your head a little.
Zindi released Alu’s shuttle strings and turned slowly to Hajj Fahmy. She took his hand, and before he could pull it away she bent down and kissed it, formally.
God keep you, Hajj Fahmy, she said. You’re a good man.
And then she rushed away, for there was a lot to do and very little time to do it in: providentially she had heard somewhere that a sambuq called Zeynab was to sail for the Red Sea that very night.
Chapter Eighteen. Dances
When Abu Fahl stepped through the door, everyone in Hajj Fahmy’s courtyard could tell at once that he had a bottle hidden under his jallabeyya. His gleefully secretive grin made it plain; they didn’t even really need to look at the bulge under his arm to make sure.
Though it was only four o’clock, there were already a dozen men waiting in the strip of shade under the far wall of the courtyard. Alu was sitting at the loom at the other end, and Zaghloul was squatting beside him, asking questions and laughing at the answers, pretending incomprehension. Zaghloul saw Abu Fahl first, so he knew even before the others. He leapt to his feet and shouted delightedly: Bring it here, ya akhi, fast, before they get their hands on it. But there was a quick chorus from the other end, too: What have you got there, Abu Fahl? Show us.
Abu Fahl, swaggering across the courtyard, tried to wipe his grin away and assume innocence: Nothing, nothing at all — wala haja.
Come on, Abu Fahl, they sang out again. What is it? Potato stuff? Arrack? Whisky? Anything good?
Nothing, really, nothing at all, Abu Fahl said, demurely smoothing over the bulge under his arm. He glanced quickly around the courtyard and at the house: Where’s Hajj Fahmy?
Everyone laughed — sympathetically, for they would have been nervous, too, in his place. No drop of liquor had ever passed between Hajj Fahmy’s lips, and were he to hear that a bottle had entered his courtyard the man who had brought it would almost certainly be expelled from his house for all time. Don’t worry, someone said, it’s all right. He’s inside, sleeping. But hurry.
Abu Fahl, relieved, winked across the courtyard at Zaghloul and began to back away from the others. A couple of them jumped indignantly to their feet, crying: What’s the matter? Where’re you going? Do you think you’re going to drink it all by yourself?
Just one minute, Abu Fahl said, begging for patience with a gesture. I have to tell Zaghloul something. You’ll get some, don’t worry. There’s plenty.
He edged back to the loom, with the others still watching suspiciously. Then, very swiftly, he turned, and with his back to them he pulled a green bottle out through the neck of his jallabeyya and slipped it to Zaghloul. Zaghloul tore the cap off and took one long gagging swallow, and then another. The liquor was white and raw, distilled from potatoes, and it burnt like red coals in his throat. The others jumped to their feet, all together, shouting protests. Abu Fahl spun round to face them, pushing the sleeves of his jallabeyya threateningly back. They hesitated for a moment. The bottle passed into Alu’s hands and he gulped down a mouthful. Then Abu Fahl snatched it out of his hands and threw his head back, and the others surged across the courtyard.
But by the time they managed to pull the bottle away from him it was a third empty and Abu Fahl was weak with laughter: Fooled you, gang of asses.
And then, with the bottle drained, lit, and thrown away, everyone, as always, was complaining; it wasn’t enough, what good was one bottle, and that, too, of this second-rate Goan stuff, what use? There was still an hour or more to kill before they left for the Star, and everyone was tired of talking about what they were going to buy afterwards, and they’d already told all the jokes about Japanese cassette recorders called No and Aiwah, so instead somebody got hold of one of Hajj Fahmy’s transistors and found a station playing Warda. But nobody was in a mood to sit and listen quietly, for the potato liquor, which always proved stronger than it seemed, was bubbling pleasantly in their stomachs. Abu Fahl began clapping first, very loudly, with his palms cupped. Soon Zaghloul joined in. Then suddenly everyone else was clapping, too, and some were stamping their feet as well, sending up clouds of dust. The women of Hajj Fahmy’s house, his wife, his daughters, his sons’ wives and their daughters, came pouring out into the courtyard and stood around the doors, laughing behind their hands and their scarves — all except the Hajj’s wife, who was too old to care whether she was seen laughing, black teeth and all, or not.
More people were arriving now, and they began clapping, too, and soon there was so much shouting and noise and laughter that no one could hear Warda any more. So Abu Fahl switched off the transistor and bellowed, Why’re we all sitting when we can dance? — and even before he’d finished people were jumping to their feet.
Everyone gathered in the centre of the courtyard and formed a ring. Someone handed Zaghloul a spoon and a disht, a huge circular steel wash-basin. He stood at the edge of the ring with the disht leaning against his knee and began to beat out a ringing, ear-splitting, one, two, three, four, five, six rhythm with the spoon.
Go on, Abu Fahl, the crowd shouted, go on — you’re in the middle.
Abu Fahl looked around him as though he was waking from a trance, and saw that it was he who the ring had formed around, that he was alone in its centre, and at once his grin was struck away by shock and he tried to break his way out, pleading: No, I can’t — you know I can’t. But the ring held firm and pushed him back into the centre: Dance now; let’s see what you can do. So Zaghloul took pity on him and began a quick, pugnacious chant, for he knew the best Abu Fahl could do when he tried to dance was mimic a fight. Khadnáhá min wasat ad-dár, he chanted; we took her from her father’s house. Wa abúhá gá’id za’alán, the crowd shouted back; while her father sat there bereft. Then Zaghloul again — Khadnáhá bis-saif il-mádi; we took her with our sharpest sword. And the refrain, Wa abúhá makánsh rádi; because her father wouldn’t consent.
But still, despite Zaghloul, it was pitiful, though funny, for no song could have made a dancer of Abu Fahl. He tried hard, but his shoulders were too broad, his legs too heavily muscular, his waist so knotted that when he moved his hips his whole torso twitched as though he were in a fever. The second chanted refrain dissolved into laughter, and Abu Fahl sank gratefully back into the ring, mopping his dripping purple face and smiling sheepishly.