Michael Pearce - A Cold Touch of Ice

‘But it’s not two birds with one stone! You’re not going to Alexandria. There’s no reason why you should go to Alexandria! Assuan, the guns came from Assuan!’

‘All right, all right.’

‘You can take a holiday after!’

Baby! The shocks were raining in fast. First Mahmoud getting married, now Rosa having a baby. He would have to tell Zeinab.

On second thoughts, perhaps he wouldn’t tell Zeinab.

The warehouse this morning was buzzing with activity. Strapping, bulging-armed porters were carrying things to and fro, the harassed warehouse foreman ran about chiding everybody, and the Signora herself, black-dressed, arms folded, stood firm at the centre of the maelstrom.

Two carts were being loaded, one bound for the Ismailiya showrooms, the other for the premises near the Market of the Afternoon. Now that the Signora had taken over the management of the business, the auctions were beginning again.

Among the goods being put on the Market of the Afternoon cart were the bales of cotton. Owen had decided that there was no need to hold them longer, now that the arms had been extracted. The arms themselves were piled in a corner, black and leaden, looking oddly at home among the bric-a-brac that surrounded them.

The cart Owen had sent for them was arriving now. The two warehouse carts were occupying all the space in front of the warehouse doors and there was an altercation. The foreman hurried out.

‘Put it there!’ he said, pointing to just the other side of the carts. It would block the street entirely: but then, Cairo traffic was used to that. Not that the camel drivers, donkey men and carts would accept it lightly.

‘Can’t we put it closer?’ pleaded the policemen with the cart.

‘Oh, you poor things!’ said the porters. ‘Why don’t you get your wives to give you a hand? Come to that, why don’t you send them round anyway.’

Affronted, one of the policemen, a giant of a man, jumped off, stalked into the warehouse and picked up a bundle of guns. They were heavier than he had thought and he had to hitch them up with his hip to get them into the cart.

The porters laughed. One of them went across to the guns and picked up two bundles, one under each arm, and then put them up into the cart with ease.

The big policeman went back into the warehouse, half bent to pick up the guns as the porter had done, considered, and then considered again.

‘Come on, you idle sods!’ he bellowed to his colleagues still on the cart. ‘Do I have to do all the work?’

Reluctantly, the policemen fell to. The porters watched them and laughed.

The big policeman walked across to his rival and patted him gently on the head.

‘There are more things to strength, little flower,’ he said, ‘than being able to pick up pianos.’

‘Come on, Selim,’ said Owen hastily. ‘Get on with it!’

It did not, in fact, take the policemen very long, but even so, in the intense heat, by the time they had finished, they were running with sweat and glad to collapse into the shade beside the cart.

By this time, of course, the street was totally jammed in both directions and there were angry shouts. Selim stood for a moment contemplating the furious, gesticulating crowd, then lay down deliberately in a shady part of the street, stretched out and put his arms behind his head.

‘Selim! Selim!’ came an agitated cry.

Selim levered himself up on to one elbow.

‘Why,’ he said, ‘it’s Mustapha, the ice man!’

‘Selim, let me through!’

‘Certainly,’ said Selim. ‘We could do with some ice.’

The ice man and his donkey pushed through the crowd.

‘Selim,’ said the ice man hesitantly, ‘the fact is, I’ve run out of ice. I am just going back to the ice house for some more.’

‘Then you’re no good to us,’ said Selim, lying down again. ‘You’d better stay there.’

‘Selim, the ice house is just round the corner –’

‘You’d never get through.’

‘I could send Amina.’

‘Amina?’ said Selim, levering himself up. ‘Who’s Amina?’

The ice man pushed a small girl forward. She was about twelve or thirteen, dressed in rags and had arms and legs like matchsticks.

‘All right,’ said Selim, ‘she can go and fetch us some ice.’

‘Sod off!’ said the girl.

‘What?’ said Selim, astonished.

‘Sod off!’ said the girl defiantly.

‘You’d better watch out,’ said Selim, ‘or I’ll put you across my knee!’

‘You’d have to catch me first,’ said the girl.

Selim began to stand up.

‘You leave our Amina alone!’ came a warning cry from among the porters.

There were other cries from among the crowd of blocked bystanders. The girl seemed to have a following.

Selim, who although robust in his approach to mankind wasn’t stupid, changed tack.

‘Amina, my darling,’ he said. ‘Light of my eyes. Pearl of the deep seas. Rose of roses. You are like the smell of jasmine, the taste of honey –’

‘Go on,’ said the girl.

‘Your breasts are like the breasts of doves. Or will be,’ said Selim, who on things like this was inclined to be accurate.

‘Go on.’

‘Your smile is like the sunrise breaking across the water, your words like the fall of distant fountains –’

‘All right,’ said the girl, ‘I’ll get some.’

‘I like a girl of spirit,’ said Selim, watching her go.

‘You like any girl,’ said Owen. ‘Now come on, get the street unblocked!’

‘Get back to work!’ cried the Signora.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ said the foreman. ‘Get a move on with these carts. We haven’t got all day.’

Owen had arranged to meet Mahmoud afterwards but when he turned into the street where Mahmoud lived, he stopped, stunned.

The street had been transformed. A great yellow-and-red-striped awning covered the entire street. Palm trees in pots had suddenly sprouted along both sides. At one end men were working on a dais, above which a massive yellow silk canopy curled down; and other men were laying a red-and-blue carpet directly across the street itself.

Further down the street he saw Mahmoud talking to some of the workmen. Mahmoud suddenly noticed him and came hurrying towards him.

‘What’s all this?’

Mahmoud looked embarrassed.

‘It’s the wedding,’ he said.

‘Already? But, surely –’

‘It’s going to be next week,’ said Mahmoud. ‘It has to be,’ he said soberly. ‘Aisha’s mother has cancer. She wants to see her daughter safely married. So everything’s been brought forward. He touched Owen pleadingly on the arm. ‘You will come?’

‘Of course.’

‘There are no male relatives, you see.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll be there.’

They walked down the street together. At every four paces Mahmoud stopped to shake someone’s hand and exchange embraces. People even came out of their houses. Owen suddenly realized. He was in Mahmoud heartland. Mahmoud was the local boy made good.

A shopkeeper hurried out of his shop and came towards them. Owen recognized him. It was Hamdan, one of Sidi Morelli’s domino-playing friends. He embraced Mahmoud and shook Owen’s hand warmly.

‘What do you think of this?’ he asked, waving at the carpets. Another one was appearing now, behind the dais, hanging down upright from poles across the top of the tent.

Mahmoud flinched.

The shopkeeper laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Mahmoud,’ he said. ‘It’ll soon be over.’

He insisted that they come into his shop for coffee. It was a grocer’s shop, smelling of spices and raisins and the rich kinds of soaps that Egyptians loved. At the back of the shop was a low counter, on which they all sat. Hamdan clapped his hands and an assistant brought coffee in brass, thimble-like cups.