Michael Pearce - The Bride Box

‘I don’t know that I should,’ wavered Nassir. ‘He might come in early to have a look around.’

‘He was in last night, wasn’t he?’

‘He was. I don’t mind that. He wanted to make sure everything was all right. Well, that’s his way. But he should have gone away afterwards. Some of us have lives to live, you know.’

‘Is that what you told him?’ said the Greek admiringly.

‘Well …’ said the clerk, tempted. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Not exactly.’

‘More than your job’s worth?’

‘Exactly!’

‘But once it was all settled, you’d have thought …’

‘You would. You would have thought he’d have gone home, instead of fussing around. But he didn’t. He had to go over it all again, making sure everything was as it should be. Not just the lot that had just come in, but everything else! Fussing around. And what made it worse was that he had sent me off.’

‘Sent you off?’

‘Yes. Before we’d even got back to the warehouse. Just like that: on a whim. He’d seen some kid or other out with her mother and wanted me to follow her and find out where she lived! Now, if it had been the mother, I’d have understood. She was a real looker. But a kid! I mean …!’

‘He’s not …’ said the Greek, hesitating. ‘One of those?’

‘Not as far as I know. As I say, I’d have thought the mother was more in his line. But you can never tell with him. He’s full of quirks. Whims. I don’t know what it was all about but he had me follow them. And then when I got back, he wanted to know all about it. Where they had gone, that sort of thing. Well, they’d gone to have an ice cream, like any sensible mother would when she’d got her kid hanging about her on a hot afternoon.’

‘Did you tell him that?’

‘Well …’

‘You should have. Probably not got any kids himself so wouldn’t know.’

‘That could well be true.’

‘Not got any family of his own?’

‘I wouldn’t think so. Going off on those long journeys of his all the time. What woman would stand it?’

‘Maybe that’s why he wanted to know? To find out what ordinary life was like?’

‘Seems a funny thing to do to me. But that’s what he did. Sent me off after them. And, you know, he’d made such a fuss earlier about the consignment and the way it was handled. Me at the front, him at the back. And then he sends me away after some kid!’

‘A nutter!’ judged the Greek. ‘They’re all like that, these bosses.’

‘Well, this one is a prize specimen.’

‘Look, how about that coffee? I can see this must all have been a strain for you.’

‘So now you’ve got it all in,’ said the Greek over coffee, ‘is that it for a while?’

‘No. It’s got to go out again. In a few days’ time.’

‘Have I got it wrong, or did you say it had to go to a madrassa?’

‘You’ve not got it wrong. The one round the corner.’

‘Round the corner? Why didn’t they take it there in the first place, then?’

‘Safer in the warehouse, I suppose. You don’t want it hanging around in the madrassa. They’ve only got the one room in the mosque.’

‘And the kids, I suppose. They’d have it to bits in a moment.’

‘Don’t say things like that! My hair’s grey enough as it is.’

‘Well, once it gets there, it’s out of your hands, anyway.’

‘That’s right. And not a moment too soon.’

The clerk couldn’t stay long. There was always the chance that Clarke Effendi would come round.

‘Keeps you up to the mark, I can see.’

‘It’s only for a short time. Then he goes away again.’

‘He doesn’t fuss around at the madrassa?’

‘Once it gets there, it’s not his concern.’

‘Moves on, I suppose. Quite quickly. You say they’ve not got much room there.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Why bring it here, then? I take it that it’s for other places as well as the madrassa. Other madrassas, I suppose. Tables and chairs, that sort of thing.’

‘They could certainly do with some. Although I’m not sure it’s that. Clarke Effendi doesn’t always tell me.’

‘I’ll tell you what I think it is,’ said the Greek. ‘It’ll be part of all the money the government is spending on schools. Too much, in my view.’

‘And in mine …’

Georgiades, sweating in the heat, padded patiently round the corner to the madrassa the clerk had mentioned. It was in a mosque, as Nassir had said. Not strictly in it, but on the steps in front of it, where other people, too, besides the teacher and his pupils, had gathered beneath the pillars in the shade. The pupils at the moment were young children, gripping their slates tightly. From time to time the teacher would pause in his recitation and get them to write a text, usually a verse from the Koran. They would hold up their slates to show him and he would check to see that they had got it right. For it wasn’t simply a matter of getting the letters and spelling correct, it was also doing justice to the Holy Word.

Behind them, on the outskirts of the group, were older boys not involved for the moment but waiting more or less patiently for their turn. And behind them, also sitting on the steps, were a lot of casual onlookers, talking quietly among themselves but benefiting, too, from hearing the Holy Words.

‘Good words!’ said the Greek, sitting down with his back to a pillar and mopping his face.

One or two of the people around him nodded. He tried to draw them into conversation but found their talk hard to follow. They weren’t very forthcoming, either, so after a while he abandoned the attempt. Sitting there with his back to the pillar in the heat, among the gentle hum of the teacher’s words, and the conversation around about him, he dozed off.

When he awoke he heard people talking. They were different people from the ones he had been sitting by before; they were more talkative. They were talking about beds, a congenial topic for Georgiades just at the moment.

They came from outside Cairo. You could hear it in their voices. But he wasn’t at once able to place them. Then he caught the work ‘ angareeb ’. An angareeb was a sort of rope bed, more common in the south of Egypt than in the city, but not unusual among the less well-to-do. There were no springs, no bottom layer, just rope, interwoven to form a comfortable, slatted surface, without even the give of a hammock.

Now they were talking about andats . He knew vaguely what they were, although again the word was unfamiliar. A foreign term for a foreign thing. You didn’t find them in Egypt. Thank goodness, for they appeared to be a species of stink bug: a sort of winged louse, from what he could make out. If you trod on one it gave off a most abominable smell. Sometimes they fell into the soup.

Soup? Had he misheard? No, they were talking about a child who had swallowed one by mistake. They had to call a hakim , a doctor.

Georgiades didn’t like the sound of this and was glad when they turned to another topic. It was, however, another medical matter. One of the speakers apparently had marital difficulties. He blamed his wife. She blamed him. Whoever was to blame, the problem appeared to be that appetite was inadequate.

‘Why don’t you try trocchee shells?’ someone suggested.

Trocchee shells? Georgiades came suddenly awake.

‘What do you do?’ said the afflicted man doubtfully. ‘Swallow them?’

‘No, no, not just like that. First you grind them into powder. The Saudis are always doing it.’

‘Trocchee shells? I don’t think that sounds very nice. Not to eat, I mean. Hey, wait a minute! That’s another thing with a nasty smell, isn’t it? Are you having me on?’