In one of the gadwals, or ditches, two small boys were fighting. Mahmoud, for justice even among small boys, stepped down into the ditch and pulled them apart.
‘He’s smaller than you,’ he remonstrated.
‘It’s a blood feud,’ said the bigger boy.
‘Shame on you! In the same village?’
‘He’s not really of this village,’ said the bigger boy.
‘Yes, I am,’ said the smaller boy tearfully.
‘No, you’re not. That’s his house over there!’
He pointed to a small house on the outskirts or, if you were pedantic, just beyond the outskirts of the village.
‘That counts as village,’ said Mahmoud firmly, and let the boys scamper off.
‘Even that little distance!’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It makes two miles away seem like a foreign country.’
‘They marry between villages, though,’ said Owen.
‘They have to. The trouble is, it doesn’t diminish the distance.’
‘Was the family bent on feud?’
‘They wouldn’t say. They wouldn’t say anything.’
‘You know, this could be solved. It doesn’t have to turn into a blood feud. From the point of view of the woman’s family, no blood has been shed.’
‘From the point of view of the man’s family it has, though. If they think it was one of the wife’s family, they’ll want revenge.’
‘Why should it be one of the wife’s family?’
‘Honour.’
‘Do they care about the woman that much?’
‘No. But they do care about the family and they say the family’s been slighted.’
‘Ibrahim’s family could pay recompense.’
‘Recompense is the last thing it’s thinking of at the moment. One of its men has been killed and it wants revenge.’
‘It could pay a little and send the wife back.’
‘That would make it worse. The wife’s family would say it showed a lack of respect. Funnily enough, I think Ibrahim’s family would take that view too. They’ve got no thought of sending her back. They don’t like her particularly, all she’s had are two daughters, it’s just an extra burden on them-and yet it hasn’t entered their heads to send her back. She became part of the family by marriage and now it’s their job to look after her. No, what they’re really interested in is the man. A man’s been killed, their man, and that must be paid for.’
Owen nodded. When he had first come to Egypt he had spent a few months patrolling the desert and knew about feuds and the tribal code of honour.
‘The danger is,’ he said, ‘that they’ll kill someone in the wife’s family, and then there’ll be another death to be paid for, and so it’ll go on.’
‘These villagers!’ said Mahmoud.
‘Let’s hope it’s not someone in the wife’s family.’
‘Let’s hope we find out who it is,’ said Mahmoud, ‘before they do.’
The roof of the house was piled high with brushwood, vegetables and buffalo dung, all in close proximity to each other. From the corners of the roof, strings of onions dangled down, each onion as vast as a melon. Poor the people might be, hungry they were not. Where there was such food there must be men to earn it or grow it, and, sure enough, inside the house there were three of them.
‘You again?’ said the older brother unwelcomingly to Mahmoud.
‘It is justice for your sister that I seek,’ said Mahmoud softly.
‘We will look after that.’
‘No,’ said Mahmoud, shaking his head. ‘You will not.’
The brother stared at him for a moment and then looked at Owen.
‘Who is he?’
‘The Mamur Zapt.’
The man flinched slightly. Old memories, the old legend, died hard.
‘What is it you want?’
‘To talk to Khadija.’
‘Khadija! There is no point. Talk to us.’
‘I talked to you the other day,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Now I would talk with Khadija.’
The men looked at each other.
‘She is not here,’ said one of the other brothers defiantly.
‘Then I will wait until she returns,’ said Mahmoud, settling himself comfortably.
‘You cannot speak with her!’
‘Why is it important that I do not speak with her?’
‘It is not important; she is a woman, that is all.’
‘Would you like my friend to go into the women’s quarters and fetch her out? He has the right.’
It was true. The Mamur Zapt had right of entry into all houses in Cairo, including harems. Whether that right extended as far out as Tel-el-Hasan, however, was questionable.
It was also questionable how far the right could be made to stick. Only two years before, not far from here, a policeman had been shot while conducting his investigations.
Owen stirred, as if ready to get to his feet. The men looked at each other.
A woman came through the door which led to the inner room.
‘Let them talk to me,’ she said.
‘Khadija?’
She nodded.
‘I will do the talking,’ said the eldest brother.
The woman stood with arms folded. She was not exactly veiled, but had pulled her headdress across her face so that they could not see it.
‘Did you know Ibrahim?’ asked Mahmoud, putting his question, however, not to her but to her brother, as was the convention.
‘How could she?’ said the brother.
‘I am asking her.’
‘I knew my sister’s husband,’ she said quietly.
‘She knew him as a sister-in-law should.’
‘I have no doubt about that. But was it the same with him? Would he have known her, that is, would he have liked to have known her, in a different way?’
‘You’ll have to ask him,’ said one of the other brothers, and laughed.
‘That is a disrespectful question,’ said the oldest brother.
‘It has to be asked. For others are asking it too.’
‘They are?’
The oldest brother’s cheeks tautened.
‘That village makes a jest of us, brother,’ said one of the others angrily.
Mahmoud held up his hand.
‘Not a jest. And they show no disrespect. For all they say is that he behaved disrespectfully to you.’
‘In disrespecting us,’ said the woman angrily, ‘he disrespected my sister.’
‘It was, however, by eye alone?’
‘He would have liked it otherwise.’
‘But it was by eye alone?’
‘With me, it was. But not with my sister. With her it was by deed.’
‘He shamed her publicly,’ growled one of the brothers.
‘By going to Jalila?’
‘Every night. He made no secret of it. And nor did she. “I can give you sons,” she said, “even if your wife can’t.” ’
‘Who was she to talk?’ said the woman fiercely. ‘How many sons had she? At least Leila had had daughters. And sons would have come. They always do in our family. Look at them!’
She pointed to her brothers.
‘I am puzzled,’ said Owen. ‘First, he left your sister for Jalila. And then he would have left Jalila for you?’
‘If he had had the chance!’ said Khadija.
‘He wouldn’t have got the chance,’ said one of the brothers angrily. ‘What do you think we are: men who make their sisters into whores?’
‘Whores!’ shouted a familiar voice in the street.
Owen and Mahmoud looked at each other.
‘Oh God!’ said Owen. ‘It’s Sheikh Isa!’
Out in the street was Sheikh Isa, together with another religious sheikh, as old, venerable and, probably, as irascible as himself, supported by an interested crowd of onlookers.
‘This is untimely!’ said Owen.
‘God’s work does not wait on man’s convenience,’ said Sheikh Isa unyieldingly.
‘God’s work? You call it God’s work to come to a house and denounce a woman who may well be guiltless?’