Amitav Ghosh - In an Antique Land - History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale

At first my presence seemed to make the girls unsure of themselves, but my role as a harmless fixture was well established now, and they soon forgot about me and began to chase ‘Eid round and round the water-wheel until finally his jallabeyya snagged on a beam and threw him to the ground.

The girls fell upon him where he lay, tickling and teasing, tugging his ears and pinching his knees. ‘What’s the matter, ya ‘Eid, have you forgotten what you said?’ one of them said, laughing. The other scratched him on the back and began to cajole, plaintively: ‘Come on, ya ‘Eid, you promised, you said you’d do it, now we’re not leaving until you do.’

‘Eid, gasping for breath, was in no state to answer until he finally managed to free himself and climb back on to his feet.

‘No,’ he said, with a masterful shake of his head while the two girls stood towering over him. ‘No — can’t you see I’m busy?’

At this, one of the girls pinned his arms back while the other began to tickle him and just when it seemed as though he would fall over yet again, he cried out loudly in surrender: ‘Stop, stop that, you girls — wait a minute.’

The girls released him, but stood where they were, watchful and ready to spring. ‘You said you’d help,’ one of them said. ‘Now you’ve got to do it.’

‘All right,’ he said, shrugging, haughtily. ‘All right, all right, all right.’

He straightened his jallabeyya with a flourish and walked away from them, strutting like a prizefighter. As soon as his back was turned the girls ran past the livestock, exploding into giggles, and after pausing for a moment they raced into the maize field, vanishing as suddenly and mysteriously as they had come.

After they had gone, ‘Eid tossed his head with a show of disdain and seated himself beside me. ‘Did you see how they were behaving?’ he said, crossing his arms across his chest. ‘Did you see? Do you see how they’ve filled out; how they move their bodies when they walk? I’ll tell you: what those two want is to get married. That’s what they want, you understand — especially the big one, the one in the green dress — she wants to get married, she really wants it.’

Picking up a maize-leaf he began to chew on the stem, gazing narrow-eyed into the distance. ‘Actually it’s me they want to marry,’ he said, after a long pause. ‘Especially the big one, the one in the green dress; she really wants me — it’s obvious. But I’ve made up my mind; I won’t have her; she’s too big for me. Why, if she rolled on me, I’d be finished. There’d be nothing left.’

There was a rustling sound in the maize again, and he jumped quickly to his feet. ‘There, you see,’ he said, with an air of world-weariness. ‘You see — they just can’t leave me alone. They’re back again.’

When the two girls ran back into the clearing, a moment later, he cupped his hands around his mouth and announced: ‘I’ve told him; I’ve told him how much you want to marry me.’

The girls stood transfixed for a moment, and then, with loud hoots of laughter they began to chase him around the trough again, tickling and slapping him playfully.

‘Of course we’ll marry you, ya ‘Eid …’

‘We’ll both marry you …’

‘As soon as you grow a little …’

‘When you’re a man …’

In a matter of seconds he was squealing and shouting, crying out to them to stop, but the chase went on until he had been reduced again to a squirming heap in the dust. Then, leaving him lying where he was, the girls vanished once again, suddenly and mysteriously.

‘It’s sad,’ said ‘Eid, once he had picked himself up again. ‘It’s sad how desperately they want to marry me. I want to get married too — it’s about time now — but I don’t want to marry them. They’re no good; they’re not pretty enough for me.’

‘Who do you want to marry then?’ I asked.

‘I know the girl I would like to marry,’ he said. ‘She walks past here sometimes, on her way to her father’s fields. I’ve said a few words to her, and from the way she smiles I know she would agree. But her parents wouldn’t let her, so it’s no use thinking of it.’

‘Why not?’ I said.

‘Because she’s in school, studying,’ he said. ‘And her people are well-off, while in our family we don’t have very much and often things are very hard in our house. And apart from that, her father is a Badawy, and he probably wouldn’t let her marry into our family. There’s nothing I can do — in the end I’ll probably have to marry one of my cousins, like my parents want.’

Then, squatting beside me, he explained that he hadn’t told anyone in his family about the girl he wanted to marry: it was no use hoping that anything would come of it, because there had been trouble between the Jammal and the Badawy for a long time, since long before he was born. It went back to the days of a Badawy ‘omda, one Ahmed Effendi, who had owned a lot of land around the village.

‘Look over there,’ said ‘Eid, pointing with a stick. ‘Do you see the land in front of us, from there to there, almost four feddans? That was all his land, and it still belongs to his son, who lives in Cairo. Khamees and I and my brothers, we work on it as sharecroppers — it doesn’t belong to us. We only get a small part of the crop, he takes all the rest. We have some land of our own, which we got during the Reforms, but that’s far away and it’s not half as big as this.’

Ahmed Effendi, the old ‘omda, had always treated the Jammal as though they were his slaves, said ‘Eid. He had made them work without payment, in his house and on the fields, and as a result, once elections were started, the Jammal voted against him. There had been fights between the two clans afterwards and for a while it was just like a feud. Ahmed Effendi would gladly have evicted his Jammal tenants, but by then the law had changed and there was nothing he could do.

Towards the end of his story, Zaghloul the weaver appeared, leading a cow and a buffalo. He listened to ‘Eid while giving his livestock their feed and then he seated himself beside us. Soon, in keeping with his habit, he piled a heap of freshly-shorn wool in front of him and began to spin yarn with a hand-held spindle.

When ‘Eid had finished, Zaghloul broke in to say that he remembered Ahmed Effendi well; like every other man in the village he had often had to work on his fields. At the time of the harvest Ahmed Effendi had gone around the village, from door to door, with his watchmen in tow, and he’d left a sickle on the doorpost of every house which had an able-bodied man in it. Those who didn’t turn out on his fields next morning ran the risk of being being beaten by his watchmen, with whips. Ahmed Effendi had been able to get away with anything he liked because he had had friends amongst the Pashas, powerful people who had connections with the British.

‘And is it true, ya Zaghloul,’ asked ‘Eid, agog with curiosity, ‘that whenever he saw a good-looking girl he would ask for her to be sent to him?’

‘Yes,’ said Zaghloul. ‘When his eyes fell on a girl he would say to her relatives, “I want that woman in my house for the night,” and sure enough, she would go, for there was nothing anyone could do. He had only to raise his voice and you would see twenty men throwing themselves in front of him, crying “at your service Effendi”.’

‘And what about you, ya Zaghloul?’ said ‘Eid, with a grin. ‘Didn’t you throw yourself flat in front of him so he could use you as he liked?’

Zaghloul smiled at him good-naturedly, his eyes vanishing into the folds of his prematurely wizened face. Then he turned to look at me, twirling his spindle in his hands.

‘So what has our boy ‘Eid been talking about?’ he said. ‘Has he been talking about the girl he’s staring at nowadays?’