Rosie Thomas - Iris and Ruby

‘To the market, Miss?’ He sounded doubtful.

‘I’ll, um, put a cover-up shirt thing on? I’ve got one in my bag. I could help carry the shopping, couldn’t I?’

‘I do this for many years, thank you.’

‘I’d really like to come.’

Iris closed her eyes. ‘Show her the market, Mamdooh, please. She will be going home to England tomorrow.’

He bowed. ‘Of course.’

When she came downstairs again with a man’s shirt buttoned up over her vest, Mamdooh was waiting for her. He had a woven rush basket over his arm, and a faded red flowerpot hat set squarely on his head. A black tassel hung down towards his left eye. Ruby felt a giggle rising in her throat, but Mamdooh’s expression quelled it.

‘Is this OK?’ she meekly asked, indicating her cover-up.

His nod was barely perceptible.

‘If you are ready, Miss?’

They went out through the blue-painted door and the sun’s heat struck the top of Ruby’s head. She took the few steps to the corner and looked up at an ancient crenellated wall, a cluster of smaller domes surrounding the large one and the three slender towers.

‘What is this place?’ she called to Mamdooh who was making stately progress in the other direction.

‘It is the mosque of al-Azhar. We are going this way, please.’

‘It’s very old.’

‘Cairo is a place of history.’ The way he said it told Ruby that he was proud of his native city and his reverence made her want to know more of it. She quickened her pace to catch him up again, and they swung down a narrow street and out into a much broader, almost Western-looking one. Out here there was a roar of traffic and hooting and tinny amplified music, and they were caught in a slow tide of people before Mamdooh ducked down into a tiled modern subway not much different from the one beneath Oxford Circus. When they surfaced again Ruby blinked.

Mamdooh beckoned her. ‘Khan al-Khalili bazaar. Follow close to me, it is easy to be lost here.’

He was right. It would be the easiest thing in the world to lose yourself in this maze of tiny alleys leading away from the almost-familiarity of the main street. There were canvas awnings looped overhead, and in their welcome shade the brightness of the crammed-together shops and stalls was dazzling. The merchandise was piled up and hung in tiers so it seemed to drip stalactites of hectic colour. One shop was crammed with interesting-looking brass and ceramic hookahs, another niche was festooned with belly dancers’ costumes gaudy with nylon fringing and glass beads. Another little recess was shelved from top to bottom with hundreds of glass jars containing oils in all the shades of precious stones. Next door open-mouthed hessian sacks spilled ochre- and saffron- and pearl-coloured grains.

The footpaths between the stalls were choked with people and wooden carts and porters with boxes piled on their heads. There were men in Western clothes, and others in galabiyeh and tarboosh like Mamdooh. There were women robed in black from head to toe, others in trousers and sturdy blouses with just a scarf wound over their hair. Ruby was startled and slightly affronted to see that there were numbers of Western tourists, pink-faced and too tall, uncertain in response to the urgent demands of the stallholders. In Iris’s secluded house she had felt as if they were the only two of their kind in the whole of Cairo.

The shopkeepers competed for Ruby’s attention as she went by.

‘Lady, look-see. Just looking, no charge. Very good prices.’

Urchins plucked at her shirt, holding up novelty lighters and boxes of tissues and bottles of water. Even in the shade it was hot, and the air felt saturated with moisture. Her shirt was soon sticking to her back and thick hanks of hair plastered themselves to her forehead and the nape of her neck. There was a continuous ssss-ssss of warning at her back as porters and carters hauled and pushed their loads into the depths of the bazaar.

She followed Mamdooh’s bobbing tarboosh, realising that if she lost sight of him she had no idea which way to turn. A memory came back to her of being a small child, shopping with Lesley in a department store. She had lost herself in a forest of legs and bulging bags, and she fought her way between them, stumbling forward and then back again, a wail of panic and outrage forming in her throat. Big faces had bloomed over her head, and hands reached out to catch her as she screamed and screamed. It could only have been a minute or two before Lesley found her, but it had seemed like hours. She resisted the impulse now to catch and hold tight onto Mamdooh’s white skirts.

An even smaller capillary led away from the alley of shops, this one enclosed by rickety houses with overhanging upper storeys that reduced the visible sky to a thin strip. There were wooden benches lining the house walls, all heaped high with vegetables and fruit. One stall was a mound of figs with skin as smooth and matte as the softest kid leather, another was a tangle of bitter-looking green leaves. Mamdooh stopped, planting his legs apart and surveying the merchandise.

Stallholders surrounded him at once, thrusting up polished aubergines and bunches of white onions for his attention. Some of the offerings he waved away, others he condescended to pinch or to sniff at. Once an item had received his approval, there was a convoluted exchange obviously relating to the price. Finally, at length and with ceremony, a purchase was wrapped in a twist of paper in exchange for some coins and Mamdooh stowed it in his straw basket before moving a couple of paces onwards.

Ruby had never seen shopping taken as seriously as this. She found a space against a dusty wall and watched in fascination.

Mamdooh glanced back once or twice to check on her. When he realised that she wasn’t going to interrupt him, or wander off and cause trouble, he gave her a small nod of approval. And then, when his shopping was complete he tilted his head to indicate that she was to follow him. At the corner he spoke to an old man sitting on a stool beside a couple of rough sacks. Another coin changed hands and now Mamdooh passed the twist of paper straight to Ruby. She bit into a sweet, creamy white nut kernel.

Mamdooh treated her just as if she were a kid, she thought. It was quite annoying, but at the same time – well, it was restful, in a way.

They threaded their way back through the porters and tourists and stallholders and customers, a slow mass of hot humanity that made urgency impossible. Ruby tucked herself behind Mamdooh and watched the faces as they bobbed towards her and were borne past.

Slanting sunlight just ahead revealed an open square. There were walls of sepia-coloured stone, the dust-coated leaves of rubber trees casting patches of shade on broken pavements, and a pair of faded sun umbrellas rooted in pillars of concrete. At two tin tables, bare except for ashtrays and a folded newspaper, sat a handful of old men.

They raised their hands or mumbled greetings to Mamdooh, who responded with two or three brief words. Several pairs of eyes, red-rimmed or milky, turned towards Ruby.

She understood the situation at once. Mamdooh came out to do the household’s shopping, then retired to this café or whatever it was for an hour’s talk with his friends, and her presence was an impediment to this pleasant interval in his day. She lifted her hands and raised her shoulders in apology as Mamdooh prepared to move on.

She said hastily, ‘I can find my way back, you know, if you want to stay with your friends for a bit. I found my way last night, didn’t I?’ She remembered Nafouz and his taxi.

Mamdooh looked genuinely shocked at this suggestion.

‘That would not be at all right, Miss. We will be going home at once. Mum-reese will look for you, perhaps.’