Camaraderie restored, the two sat down happily to grumble together.
‘I will send up chickens for tonight,’ said Owen. ‘Or at least, Heliopolis will.’
He looked at Salah.
‘Definitely!’ promised Salah.
Owen had words for Salah, too.
‘If the Syndicate goes behind my back just once again-’
‘I was going to tell you,’ said Salah hurriedly.
‘What are they after? Trying to buy the Tree? It’s nowhere near the line of the railway.’
‘Malik wants to use the land for training gallops,’ said a voice behind him.
He had forgotten about Amina.
‘You were terrific,’ she said.
‘Thanks. What’s it got to do with him?’
‘The committee has hopes of a training stable. It would have to be on this side because they’re building on the other ones. He’s got an interest of his own, too. He has some land over here which he thinks could be part of it.’
‘Just a minute, it’s the Syndicate that’s buying the land, isn’t it? Not the committee.’
‘The Syndicate’s buying the land for the committee.’
Salah cut in quickly, with an annoyed look at his daughter. ‘The Syndicate is developing the site. It builds the facilities and then lets them to clients like the Racing Committee.’
‘Which keeps asking for more and more.’
‘Amina!’ said Salah angrily. ‘It is time you went. Ride on!’ Amina gave Owen a smile as she went.
‘Remember,’ she said, ‘I ride over this way every morning.’
‘On your way, girl!’ shouted Salah furiously. ‘Sometimes I wonder,’ he said to Owen, ‘if I’ve brought her up in quite the right way!’
‘Immodesty upon immodesty!’ cried Sheikh Isa, who had only just seen Amina. ‘Abomination upon abomination! A woman! On a horse!’
‘My fortune is made!’ called the barber as Owen passed. ‘Come and rejoice at my wealth!’
Owen dropped into the little circle around the chair.
‘How is your fortune made?’
‘The Belgians wish to buy my land.’
‘You haven’t got any land,’ one of the circle objected.
‘My cousin has.’
‘It’s only an allotment. Which he shares with Musa.’
‘Land is land. And it’s right in the way of what Malik wants for his gallops. I shall hold out! Whatever he offers me, I shall spurn. “You offer me that?” I shall say, “I disdain your puny offer. You’ll have to offer serious money if you want to get anywhere with me!” ’
‘But it’s not your land!’
‘It’s my cousin’s land. And my cousin is but a fool, a simple man. He has no head for this kind of thing. I shall negotiate for him.’
‘Against the Pasha? He’ll have your balls off!’
‘Anyway,’ said another of the circle, ‘I thought you didn’t agree with selling off the Tree to foreigners?’
‘The Tree? What is the Tree? It is mere superstition. Sell it off, I say. Pocket the money. The money is real; the Tree is but vapour.’
‘This is a different tune from what you were singing yesterday.’
‘I sing with the times. I am,’ said the barber with dignity, ‘on the side of Progress.’
‘Now you are, but-’
‘You’ll never make any money out of this!’
‘Malik’s the one who’ll make the money.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ said someone else. ‘Zaghlul owns some of the land, too, and he’s not going to sell. He doesn’t like Malik.’
‘He’ll sell if the money’s right.’
‘No, he won’t. Just to spite Malik.’
‘Anyway,’ said someone who had not yet spoken, ‘what does Malik want a gallop for? He goes on enough gallops with Jalila!’
They all laughed.
‘Not any more, he doesn’t,’ said the barber. ‘She won’t have anything to do with him now. Not since Ibrahim died.’
‘Why not?’ asked Owen.
‘She used to like Ibrahim. Of course, she had to go with Malik if he asked her, because he was the Pasha. But she preferred Ibrahim. Anyway, one day when he called, there was Ibrahim. “Bugger off!” he says to Ibrahim. Well, you know Ibrahim. Head too hot, tongue too quick. “It’s not for me to bugger off,” he says. “Times have changed. You don’t own me now. And it won’t be long before you and your lot’ll be swept away.” “Oh, is that so?” says Malik. “We’ll see about that!” And then, do you know, that stupid woman has to butt in. “Take yourself off!” she says to Malik. “He’s right. You don’t own him now and you don’t own me either.” So off Malik has to go, with his tail between his legs.’
‘She oughtn’t to have said that!’ said someone. ‘Not to the Pasha!’
‘Well, she’s sticking to it. He’s been over to see her several times and each time she says, “Not you, Malik.” ’
‘She was always too outspoken,’ said someone uneasily.
Owen went to see Jalila.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘this is a surprise!’
Her brother was obviously not there, for she did not invite him in.
‘I’m still looking for the man who killed Ibrahim.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I know you are.’ There was a pause and then she said: ‘You’ve got him, haven’t you?’
‘Have I?’
She did not reply.
‘What did you come to see me for?’
‘Ibrahim and Malik quarrelled. Since then you have refused to see Malik. Why?’
‘What’s the Pasha’s son to me?’ she said. ‘Ibrahim was right. Their day has gone.’
‘Is that all?’
‘What else could there be?’
‘Did Malik come to see you on the night that Ibrahim was killed?’
She looked at him in surprise.
‘No.’
‘Sure?’
She suddenly understood.
‘If Malik had been anywhere around,’ she said bitterly, ‘I would have told you.’
He had felt he had to explore it. But really he could not see it. A quarrel over a woman, affronted pride, revenge taken, yes; but Malik? Somehow Owen could not see him in the part. Ali, now, Leila’s ferocious brother, that was a different matter: a rough, tough customer, used, probably, to such work through his association with the racecourse gang, quick, as Owen had seen for himself, to reach for a gun in an argument, more than ready to resent an affront-Owen could certainly see him doing it.
And that, clearly, was what the village thought. Even Jalila herself, probably. Malik? He didn’t come into it-except that he obviously loomed much larger in the life of the village than Owen had supposed.
Besides, one always came back to it-if Malik had been involved, what could one make of the body’s being placed on the line? It was directly contrary to Malik’s interests. What he wanted was to get the line completed as quickly as possible. No, revenge might have had some part to play in Ibrahim’s death, but it wouldn’t have been Malik’s desire for revenge-if desire for revenge he had; more likely, he viewed the whole thing as simply beneath him-but someone else’s. There seemed to be plenty of desire for revenge washing around the village, not least on the part of Ali. And that, Owen was convinced, was far more likely.
Coming out of Sheikh Isa’s house he saw Zaghlul. Unexpectedly, the old man crossed the street and came up to him.
‘This is a bad business,’ he said.
‘There are many bad businesses, especially just now. Which one is troubling you?’
Instead of replying, Zaghlul nodded his head.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there are many bad businesses just now. But they all come from one thing. Two years ago everything here was like that.’ He pointed out across the fields shimmering in the sun to the more distant shimmer of the desert. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘it is like that.’
He gestured towards the houses.
‘Everywhere they build. The city creeps out into the desert. The railway-’
He spat into the dust.
‘They squeeze us out,’ he said. ‘At first we say: “The desert is big enough for both of us,” and let them come. But the desert is not big enough for both of us. They want more and yet more. They squeeze us out.
‘At first I said: “The times are changing and I must change with them.” I saw the railway coming out to Heliopolis and saw them building the big stores. And I said to myself: “Zaghlul, you must learn new tricks.” So I bought some land out in the desert, away from Heliopolis, and I stocked it with ostriches. And I thought, “Here I will be safe,” for it is away from Heliopolis and among the palaces of the Khedives and the Pashas and they will not let them build there. But always they want more. Now they are building these gallops.’