‘So you didn’t go, Mohammed?’
‘They wouldn’t have me. I’m glad now. He was right, wasn’t he? Look what happened to Ibrahim.’
‘That’s nothing to do with it!’ said the barber. ‘What happened to Ibrahim happened because he was fooling around with other women and got across those mad brothers of his wife. I always said he shouldn’t have married out of the village!’
‘Not to someone from Tel-el-Hasan, anyway,’ said Ja’affar. ‘There’s always trouble when you mix with that lot.’
‘Yes, but it wouldn’t have happened if God hadn’t willed it,’ said Mohammed, unwilling to relinquish his position.
The free-thinking barber, however, would have none of it.
‘God’s got better things to do than breaking Ibrahim’s neck,’ he said firmly.
Owen, listening soporifically in the sun, and slipping ever deeper into the villagers’ world, was becoming more and more convinced that the answer to the riddle of Ibrahim’s death lay here in the village and not in the city. Mahmoud could look there if he wished.
A violent tooting disturbed the slumbers of the houses.
‘What’s that?’ said Owen, startled.
‘It’ll be the Pasha’s son,’ said someone.
‘Come to see Jalila,’ said the barber.
A motor car — the motor car-nosed its way into the street with a horde of urchins running alongside. It came to a stop beside the barber’s.
‘Hello, Owen!’ called Malik.
Owen got to his feet.
‘Thirsty? I wouldn’t drink that stuff. It’s the water, you know. Best avoided. I’ve got something better here. Fancy a drop?’
‘No, thanks. Not while I’m working.’
‘Working? Here? What on?’
‘It’s the case of that chap who was found on the line.’
‘The villager? But my dear fellow, you don’t bother about villagers! They’re always killing each other. Leave them to it, is my motto.’
‘Ah, yes, but, you see, it was interfering with work on the line.’
‘Oh, that fellow! Damned nuisance. Why they didn’t just push him off and get on with it I can’t understand. But, my dear chap, you shouldn’t be concerning yourself with this sort of thing! Leave that to the Parquet. What you ought to be doing is seeing that the Nationalists don’t exploit it.’
‘Well, thanks.’
‘They’re only too ready, you know.’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
‘Stick to essentials, that’s my advice.’
‘Thank you. And you: sticking to essentials, too?’
Malik laughed.
‘I’m over here to see a woman, if that’s what you mean. But I wouldn’t call her essential. Not in particular, that is. Just women in general.’
‘And none nearer at hand? But, Malik, how sad!’
‘There are plenty nearer at hand,’ said Malik, offended. ‘I just happened to be passing, that’s all.’
‘All the same, I’m surprised you think her worth your attention.’
‘A mere village woman, you mean? Well, you know, she has her points.’
‘I must confess, though, Malik, I am a little surprised. Someone like you! Sharing her with the villagers!’
Malik looked at him.
‘You know about that?’ he said, slightly disconcerted. ‘Well’- recovering-‘one mustn’t be narrow-minded about these things. She’s still a village woman, after all.’
Owen didn’t quite follow.
‘Well,’ said Malik seriously. ‘They all belong to me, you know. In principle. The whole village belongs to me.’
‘I don’t belong to you, you bastard,’ muttered the barber, sotto voce.
‘You mean, the women-?’
‘Of course, I don’t choose to exercise my rights. Not these days. But the right is still there. It’s a matter of tradition. Tradition is very important to these people, you know, Owen. You wouldn’t understand that, as an Englishman coming in from outside. But I know how important it is to them. They really want me to sleep with their wives. They expect it of me. And I, well, I really hate turning them down. It goes against the grain, Owen. But then I am also a man of the modern world. The fact is, I am torn. Torn, like all Egyptians, between the Old and the New.’
‘Gosh, how difficult for you! And so you have to compromise? Instead of sleeping with all the women, you just sleep with the one who doesn’t have a husband?’
‘That’s it! Exactly! Of course, I know that many will be disappointed, but-’
‘I understand. But, my dear Malik, let me not add to the numbers of the disappointed by detaining you when you have pressing duties elsewhere-’
The car disappeared round the corner. The men circled round the chair watched it go.
‘He thinks he owns us,’ said someone bitterly.
‘There’ll come a time when all those Pashas are swept away,’ said the barber.
‘Not them! They’ll hang on somehow or other. First, they’ll sell themselves to the foreigners. Then they’ll sell us.’
Owen, however, was wondering about his tidy separation of the village from the city.
As he was walking back to the station, Owen saw a woman working in the fields. She straightened up as he went past.
‘It’s no good, Effendi,’ she said. ‘Whatever you do, it is not going to bring him back.’
He stopped, surprised at being spoken to, although he knew that the women in the villages were much freer than those in the town. He guessed at once, though, who she was.
‘You must be Leila,’ he said. ‘Ibrahim’s wife.’
She nodded.
‘I saw you,’ she said, ‘when you were talking to my father-in-law. And then you came again. You keep coming, don’t you?’
‘I keep coming,’ Owen said. ‘But really it is my colleague’s concern, not mine.’
‘Still you come, though. Well, I will tell my children and they will not forget. They are only daughters but they will tell their sons.’
‘Thank you.’ Owen looked around. ‘They are not with you?’
‘They are too small. Later-soon-they will come. When the man dies, the women have to work.’
‘It is hard when the man goes.’
‘And when he leaves no sons. We had hoped for sons but after Mariam’s birth-well, I had a hard time that time and afterwards things were never quite the same. I was not right inside. Ibrahim paid for me to go to the hakim but he could do nothing. That is why,’ she said, looking him in the face, ‘he went to Jalila.’
Owen muttered something.
‘It does not matter. Except that it angered my brothers. You have put my brothers in the caracol,’ she said, not in accusation but as a matter of fact.
‘Yes. Lest Ibrahim’s family kill them in anger.’
‘I do not think they would kill them. My brothers are strong men, stronger than they.’
‘It is not that. It is that one has to stop the killing. One killing leads to another. One has to break the chain.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said.
‘It is the first step that is wrong.’
‘Yes, but what is the first step? The killing or what led to it?’
‘Both are wrong. But when wrong is done, there are better remedies than killing.’
‘Well, maybe.’
‘ Did your brothers look for revenge?’
‘They looked.’
‘But did they take it?’
She gave no sign of having heard. Instead, she said, almost wistfully:
‘He was not a bad man. Foolish, yes, but not bad. His head was too hot and his tongue was too quick.’
‘Was it too quick for your brothers?’
‘For them?’ She seemed startled. ‘No. I do not think so. Ibrahim and Ali were friends,’ she added, after a moment.
‘Friends?’ said Owen, surprised.
‘Yes. That was how I came to wed. They met at the ostrich farm.’
‘When Ibrahim was working there?’
‘Ali worked there too. But only for a short time. He had worked for Zaghlul before, when Zaghlul was supplying the pilgrims. He used to manage the mules. But then when Zaghlul stopped, there was no work for him. Zaghlul offered him a job at the ostrich farm but Ali did not like it. He said, “This is no work for a man like me.” “Very well, then,” said Zaghlul, “you find your own work.” Then Ali worked in the fields, but he did not like that either. He was always going off to the city. We would have spoken to him about it but he usually brought back money. Good money,’ she said, considering.