Not a lot, thought Owen. Out loud he said:
‘It is always a pleasure to see the signs of joy.’
‘There is joy in our hearts. For this is the time when the faithful gather to make the Great Journey.’
‘Happiness, indeed,’ said Owen, bowing his head politely.
‘We rejoice with them.’
‘Quite so!’
‘But mutedly.’
‘Mutedly?’ said Owen.
‘For three reasons.’
Owen tried to edge past.
‘First,’ said the sheikh determinedly, ‘because they are only on their outward way. Their hearts have not yet felt the holy touch. It is only on the return journey that their joy, and ours, knows no end.’
‘Joy, indeed!’
‘Second, however,’ said Sheikh Isa, ‘our joy is limited because we think of those who do not travel with them.’
‘Ah, the sadness!’ murmured Owen sympathetically.
‘Backsliders!’ shouted Sheikh Isa. ‘Backsliders, all of them! The faint of heart in the villages! The godless in the infidel towns! Snakes, vermin, worse than vermin; Christians! Worse than Christians; Copts!’
‘Yes, well-’
‘The third reason,’ said Sheikh Isa inexorably, ‘why our joy is muted is this: the caravan is no longer what it was. Each year the numbers are fewer.’
He looked accusingly at Owen.
‘They are going by train, perhaps,’ suggested Owen helpfully.
This was a mistake. Sheikh Isa glared at him.
‘That,’ he said harshly, ‘is where the error begins.’
Owen continued to edge away.
‘The world changes,’ he said, ‘and we must change with it.’
‘Not so!’ bellowed Sheikh Isa. ‘If we are tempted, do we have to fall? The railway is put there to tempt us; do we have to yield? The devil builds a city; do we have to go to it?’
‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ said Owen.
Sheikh Isa stared into the distance.
‘But what,’ he almost whispered, ‘if it comes to me? What if the railway creeps across the desert towards me? What if it enters the village and lures the hearts of the foolish people with gold? What if the devil’s houses reach out to touch my own? What do I do then?’
Chapter 9
Owen’s offering to pay for Ja’affar’s treatment had made him a friend if not of the whole village, then very definitely of the barber and, as he went past, the barber hailed him and invited him to take tea. The chair was empty for the moment, no chins requiring shaving, no injuries, treatment and no penises, circumcision, and the barber was free to bustle about preparing tea for his cronies.
Owen joined the ring squatting on the ground. One of the ring was Ja’affar.
‘How’s it going, Ja’affar?’
‘Terribly. I’ll soon have to go back to work.’
‘Old man Zaghlul was round after him this morning,’ volunteered one of the others.
‘The old bastard! He’s worse than the Belgians!’ said Ja’afFar indignandy.
‘He’ll be in the village every day now for a bit. He’ll be keeping his eye on you!’
Owen settled back and let the tide of conversation flow over him.
‘I saw Zaghlul just now,’ said someone.
‘Yes, he’s talking to Sheikh Isa.’
‘What’s he talking about?’
‘It’ll be to do with the pilgrims.’
‘Don’t tell me he’s trying to sell them ostriches!’
‘No, no. Camels. Some of them will need new camels for the journey. He can get them from his friends in the desert.’
‘Those thieving Bedouin! I bet he makes a piastre or two!’
‘You know what? I’ve heard they sell them to the pilgrims here and then steal them back later.’
‘And I wouldn’t be surprised if that old man Zaghlul had a hand in both, the murderous old skinflint!’
‘What happens?’ asked Owen. ‘Does Sheikh Isa go over to the Birket-el-Hadj and take orders?’
‘More or less. He’s over there most days at this time of year and no doubt he keeps his ears open. If he gets to hear of someone wanting camels he lets Zaghlul know about it.’
‘Old Zaghlul’s in the mosque most mornings now. It’s amazing how devout he gets when the pilgrims are around!’
‘Well, that was how he made his fortune wasn’t it? Supplying the pilgrims.’
‘That was in the old days. These days he’s into ostriches. Got out at the right time, too, I’d say. Once that new town gets built, the storekeepers there will have their eyes on the Birket-el-Hadj.’
‘They’ll have their eyes on richer people than pilgrims, if what I hear is true.’
‘What do you hear?’ asked Owen.
‘That Heliopolis is going to be for the rich.’
‘The poor will get shouldered out,’ said the barber. ‘That’s always the way of it.’
‘Old man Zaghlul will get shouldered out, from what I hear. Ostriches and horses don’t mix.’
‘He won’t like that,’ said Ja’affar.
‘It’ll be for the second time, too. He won’t take that lying down.’
‘He’s in the wrong place, that’s the trouble. The rich have got their eye on it and the rich always get what they want.’
‘We’re in the wrong place, too. And do you know why? Because they’re not building out on our side. If they were, we could be doing very well for ourselves. They’d be offering us money for our land like they’re doing in Tel-el-Hasan.’
‘Tel-el-Hasan? That’s where that Copt comes from. I’ll bet he’s doing all right!’
‘He’s doing all right anyway. What with that Tree!’
‘Ah, but he won’t have the Tree much longer. They’re going to take it away.’
‘Take it away? They must be crazy!’
‘Well, they are crazy. They’re foreigners. That’s right, isn’t it?’ he appealed to Owen.
‘Some foreigners do want to take it away. But it won’t happen.’
‘Take the Tree away! Whatever next!’
‘It won’t happen,’ said Owen, ‘at least, not for years.’
‘One day, though, it will,’ said the barber. ‘That’s it, you see. Everything’s changing. You think things are going to go on forever as they are and then one day they start building a town and the next thing you know there’s a massive town on your doorstep, and it spreads and spreads-one day, you mark my words, there’ll be houses from here to Cairo!’
‘Oh, come on!’
‘Ridiculous!’
‘You’re letting yourself be carried away, Suleiman!’
‘Houses all the way from here to Cairo,’ repeated the barber, highly satisfied at the effect of this conjuring up of the Apocalypse.
‘You don’t think so, do you?’ they appealed to Owen.
‘Houses all the way to Cairo? No!’
‘I don’t think so either,’ said one of the men. ‘And do you know why? Because before the houses get to Cairo, they’ll get to Birket-el-Hadj. And there they’ll stop.’
‘Why?’ asked the barber.
‘Don’t be daft, Suleiman. Because that’s where the pilgrims are. That’s where the caravan starts.’
‘So?’
‘They’re not going to change that, are they?’
‘Well-’ began the barber.
But his words were lost in the chorus of disbelief and disapproval.
For Owen, squatting on the sand, drinking the bitter, black, but oddly refreshing tea of the fellahin, listening to the creak of the sagiya from the well and the gurgles of the doves in the palms, the sounds and tastes and sensations of Egypt immemorial, it seemed inconceivable too.
Yet the railway was stretching over the desert and the houses were being built. The world was changing, as he had so glibly said to Sheikh Isa. For perhaps the first time he realized fully how it must appear to the villagers, how it must appear to Isa, and felt a twinge of sympathy.
‘Sheikh Isa does not like it,’ he said.
‘He does not.’
‘He hasn’t liked it from the first,’ said someone, ‘not from the day Ibrahim said he was going to work for them. He had us all in and said it was the devil’s work we’d be doing. But Ibrahim said it was just like any other work and that he needed the money. Several others thought that, too. Sheikh Isa was very angry and said that it would be on our own heads.’