Michael Pearce - The Bride Box

‘Don’t let them hear you saying things like that,’ said Paul. ‘They think they’ve stamped it out, too.’

The Sudan, that vast country, larger than India, which lay to the south of Egypt, was jointly governed by Egypt and Britain. There, too, there was a difference between appearance and reality. While formally the Sudan was a condominium, jointly governed by Egypt and Britain, in practice the British ran the show. Once their troops had re-conquered the Sudan — in the name of Egypt — some years before, the British had stayed there, too. It was Englishmen not Egyptians who were the District Commissioners and the country was governed from Khartoum. There, too, the slave trade had been put down — supposedly. It was one of the pretexts for the British invasion.

The Sudan had been the great slave market of Africa. Here traders had brought their captives from the south to be traded and sold on to the markets of the Middle East. Egypt had been one of those markets. In Egypt now the slave trade had been largely stamped out, though rumour had it that it still persisted in parts of the south, along the border with the Sudan.

The Sudan government hotly denied it and were zealous in their efforts to quash it, but the rumour persisted.

‘I was thinking of having a word with their Slavery Bureau,’ said Owen.

‘It sounds as if you’d do better to have a word with our Slavery Bureau,’ said Paul. ‘If it still existed.’

The Egyptian Slavery Bureau had been abolished recently in the name of economy.

‘My people won’t want to hear about this,’ said Paul. ‘They think they’ve put slavery behind them, and won’t want to restart the machinery for suppression. It’s too costly.’

‘So who do I have a word with?’

‘A good question.’

‘I thought you might-’

‘Have a word with my boss? Yes. I will. But I’m not sure he’ll want to know. Doing anything will cost money and he hasn’t got any. Not until the next financial year.’

‘It will be too late by then. They’d be out of Egypt.’

‘It looks as if you’re on your own, then.’

‘Not me. It’s really nothing to do with me. It’s not political.’

The Mamur Zapt reckoned to concern himself only with political matters.

And meanwhile there was the question of what to do with Leila. Paul said that he thought they could find some institution which could look after her. Again, however, Miss Skiff was having none of it.

‘They’d steal her back,’ she said.

‘ Steal her?’ The thought had not occurred to him.

‘It would be better if she went home with you,’ said Miss Skiff firmly.

Owen was not so sure about that. How would Zeinab react, for one thing?

He put it to her.

Zeinab was taken aback. She felt sorry for the child and wouldn’t mind helping; but broad sympathy was one thing and having a child about the house where you would always be tripping over her was quite another. The prospect was faintly alarming.

Like Nikos, she was not used to children. She was the next best thing to an only child. She had a half-brother but he was much older than she was and they had never been close. Never, in fact, had much contact at all. He had not been around for years, hurried out of Egypt a while ago following an abortive attempt on the Khedive’s life.

Zeinab was not, actually, Nuri Pasha’s legitimate daughter. Her mother had been a famous courtesan who had resisted Nuri’s repeated proposals of marriage, preferring to keep her independence. And her daughter had taken after her, insisting on cutting her own way through life. Nuri, modern-minded in some things, had gone along with this, seeing only that she received a proper (i.e. boy’s) education along French lines. (Like many rich Egyptians he had no time for Egypt but plenty of time for France. England was a necessary evil.) Having done this he got out of the way and gave Zeinab her head. He had not frowned upon her relationship with Owen. There were, after all, advantages for a wily and eternally hopeful politician in having the Mamur Zapt as a sort of son-in-law.

But Zeinab had not exactly had a normal family upbringing. Nuri had doted on her as on her mother but had not actually had much to do with her. Her closest relationships had been with servants — or, in truth, with slaves — of whom, of course, given that this was a Pasha’s household, there had been plenty. Not much difference, in fact, existed between slaves and servants. The result was that Zeinab, who thought of herself as a French liberal, was not too bothered about the slavery issue.

When she had moved in with Owen, she had not taken any slaves with her. Because of his special position, Owen, unusually among Europeans in Cairo, had no servants. Zeinab hadn’t minded this. To her it was rather exotic, one of the many exotic things that had drawn her to Owen.

She had never had anything to do with children. Lately, one of her friends, Aisha, had had a baby. Zeinab had held it in her arms and, once she had got used to it, quite liked the experience. She wouldn’t mind having a baby herself. In fact, at nearly thirty, perhaps she had better get on with it.

But having a grown child in the house was a bit different. She wasn’t sure about that.

Not only that, the child was … different. She was, for a start, darker than Zeinab, or, indeed most Egyptians.

‘She looks Sudani,’ she said to Owen.

‘She comes from Denderah,’ he said. But he knew what Zeinab meant. Leila’s features were not those of an Arab. But then, nor were those of many Egyptians. Still …

And then there was the question of colour. Again, this was not unusual among Egyptians, particularly those living in the south, where races had mixed over time. All the same, Leila’s face was a bit … different.

Not that it mattered. The girl was only going to be with them for a short time. It was just that it was difficult for Zeinab to feel close to her. Not like a mother but, say, like an aunt. She told Leila to call her ‘aunt’.

But there were practical things, too. What was the girl going to do all day? Zeinab hadn’t the faintest idea. She consulted Aisha.

‘Don’t be daft!’ said Aisha. ‘Give her some things to play with. I’ll let you have some of ours. And if you’re really bothered, get someone in — a maid or a nurse or something.’

But that would mean having a servant in the house and Zeinab was not sure how Owen would feel about that.

Owen, as a matter of fact, was already toying with the idea. But for a different reason. He had been left uneasy by Miss Skiff’s suggestion that the slavers might try to steal Leila back. What if they did that while he was out of the house?

He didn’t want to have a guard. He had never gone in for guards and wasn’t going to start now. But maybe, just while Leila was here …

An idea came to him. There was a man he knew, Musa, who had been in the police and whom Owen had borrowed on occasion and found reliable. He was now retired and working, so Owen had heard, as a part-time servant in several wealthy houses. People liked to employ ex-policemen in that capacity. There was some — well, better than none, anyway — guarantee of honesty and they were usually good at polishing things. Like ex-army people. Come to think of it, hadn’t Musa served in the army as well? That might come in handy.

He sent for Musa and explained the situation to him. Musa would be glad to come, not just for the money but also for the prestige of working for the Mamur Zapt.

‘Nights as well, Effendi? I can sleep on the floor.’

Owen thought. ‘That might be a good idea,’ he said.

Musa shuffled his feet. ‘Can I bring my wife?’ he asked. ‘She would sleep on the floor, too,’ he added quickly.