Michael Pearce - The Bride Box

‘It was taken away,’ someone explained. ‘And put in the barn. And then we did not see it any more.’

‘Did she show it to you?’

They shook their heads.

‘Once,’ one of them qualified.

‘You went out to the barn?’

‘She showed it to me when it was still in the house.’

‘Just after she had come back?’

‘That is so.’

‘And did you think she had nice things?’

‘Quite nice,’ someone said.

‘Nice, but showy. I have nicer things.’

‘You have a bride box yourself?’

The woman nodded.

‘And when are you to be married?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Just waiting,’ explained another woman.

‘For someone to ask for her?’

‘For Abdul to make up his mind!’

There was a general laugh.

‘And was Soraya, too, just waiting?’

‘It would seem so,’ some said.

‘Do you think she was wrong to bring her bride box here?’

On the whole they thought it was.

‘It was too presumptuous,’ someone said.

‘Her man had not yet spoken for her?’

He didn’t get a reply.

‘Perhaps he had not made up his mind?’ said Mahmoud with a smile.

Again there was silence.

‘You women are all in trouble,’ said Mahmoud, smiling, ‘if your men are not going to speak!’

‘It wasn’t that.’

‘Ah? What was it?’

But again there was silence.

‘The lady would not have it.’

‘Perhaps the lady did not want to lose her,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Having only just brought her back?’

Again there was the silence.

‘She seemed to hold her dear,’ said Mahmoud.

‘She did, at first.’

‘It was “Soraya do this, Soraya do that! Soraya come and sit near me, Soraya come and talk to me!”’

‘I expect she wanted to hear her own tongue?’ said Mahmoud.

‘Well, yes, but she could always have gone and visited her family if she had missed her own people so much!’

‘ Does she miss them?’ asked Mahmoud.

‘I think she does. She is always sending them gifts.’

‘It was like that with the Pasha, too. He was always sending them gifts.’

‘At first.’

‘Well, he kept on with it. Even after …’ the woman stopped.

‘After the Pasha had put her aside?’

‘After she had come to live here with the young Pasha — even then he continued to send them gifts. Still does, they say. I wonder why? It’s not even that her people are … well, our people. They are all Sudanis. Gifts, messages, and I don’t know what else! They turn up at the house, and Ismail receives them graciously, which is more than he does with other people. He has to, or the Pasha will fall on him, he says.’

‘So what does he do with them when the Pasha is not at home?’

‘Sends them on to Cairo. Ismail even has to find the money. He doesn’t like it, of course, but he has to do what the Pasha has ordered, and no nonsense about it! But why the Pasha makes such a fuss over them, I cannot think. Particularly as he won’t have anything to do with his wife or son. It’s a strange old world!’

‘And she’s no better. Always sending messages. Suleiman is away now.’

‘No, he’s not. I saw him here this morning.’

‘Yes, he is. I saw him go. Late this morning. In a hurry.’

‘Well, I wonder what that’s about? Mind you, you never know. She won’t say and he won’t say.’

‘Who is Suleiman?’ asked Mahmoud.

‘My lady’s man.’

‘He works in the fields?’

‘No, no, he’s too grand for that. About the house. He’s another Sudani. Comes from the lady’s family. Always going back there to do this or that.’

‘Sudani?’ said Mahmoud. ‘Like Soraya?’

‘Closer. Soraya’s not really part of her family. Well, she is, but not really. A distant cousin. Very distant, I know, because I heard them talking once, she and the lady. They were trying to puzzle out the family connection. And not finding it easy, I must say. But it did exist. The lady remembers Soraya’s mother.’

‘And Suleiman went off?’ said Mahmoud. ‘This morning?’

‘Yes. In a hurry, like I said.’

‘That would be before the men came in from the fields?’

‘Just before. He was leaving as they were arriving.’

‘But …’ began Mahmoud.

The Pasha’s lady had known that the servants would be parading before him, had agreed to it herself. And then she had done this! Made sure he wouldn’t speak to everybody. Not, almost certainly, to the one person with whom he wanted to speak.

They had done it again. Tricked him.

But this time there was a difference. He now knew exactly who the Pasha’s lady did not want him to speak to.

One day Zeinab came back home to hear shrieks inside the house. She dropped the packages she was holding and rushed in. Leila was standing in the kitchen sobbing. She held her arms out and Zeinab, without thinking, grabbed her and held her close.

Neither Musa nor his wife were to be seen. They had gone out to the market, Leila explained between sobs. They were buying a lot of things and Musa, unusually among Egyptian men, had gone to help carry them. And she, Leila, had tripped over the step and blooded her knee!

She showed Zeinab the knee fearfully.

It was indeed bloody but not a mortal wound, and Zeinab, who, in her father’s house would normally have shouted for a slave, reckoned she could cope on her own. She carried Leila, still racked with sobs, into the bathroom and sponged the blood off.

‘Look!’ she said. ‘It’s all gone!’

Leila peered doubtfully; then saw a part where the skin had come off and opened her mouth to roar again.

‘We’ll put a patch on it,’ said Zeinab hastily. There were, she knew, patches in the cupboard. Owen sometimes used one when he cut himself shaving. She found one and spread it over the wounded area.

Leila, curious, cut off her scream in mid-roar.

‘It will be all right now,’ said Zeinab reassuringly.

Still the little body heaved and Zeinab hugged her tight. Eventually the sobbing subsided, but Zeinab went on holding her. She found she quite liked the experience. It came to her that not all things should be delegated to slaves.

Musa and his wife returned at this point. Musa’s wife rushed across and took over from Zeinab. And Musa patted his heart and said he had heard the shouts and feared Leila was dying.

‘Would you mind?’ asked Leila.

‘A bit,’ said Musa.

Leila knew he was teasing her. She broke into chuckles and soon the incident was forgotten.

But not by Zeinab. She had seen the way that Musa’s wife handled Leila, and she had observed the way her friend Aisha behaved with her children, and she guessed that this was the way mothers behaved with their children. When she came back into the kitchen, after collecting the purchases she had dropped, she gave Leila a hug.

Leila put her arm round her neck and gave her a kiss. Then she climbed up on to Zeinab’s lap. ‘You have a lovely smell, Auntie,’ she said.

‘Thank you!’ said Zeinab. ‘It’s perfume.’

‘It’s in your ear,’ said Leila.

‘Not in my ear but behind it,’ said Zeinab. ‘Would you like to try some?’

After this they were more at ease with each other. Zeinab even took her with her sometimes when she went shopping in the fashionable, almost entirely French, great stores.

One day when they were out together, Leila tugged at her arm and said: ‘Auntie, why is that man looking at me?’

‘Which man?’

‘He has gone away now.’

‘Are you sure he was looking at you?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘I expect he was thinking what a pretty little girl you are.’

‘I don’t think he was thinking that,’ said Leila doubtfully.