Into Suez (15 page)

‘And now Ahmad Shawqi’s
Salu Qalbi
.’

Sudden silence. Which became a mounting roar as Oum Koulsoum moved into the song’s climax.

Later Ailsa would be told that the phrases that lit the touch paper were ‘Demands are not met by wishing; the world can only be taken by struggle.’ A revolutionary message. The Palestinian Arabs had been slaughtered and driven out by the Zionists; Islam violated; Allah ridiculed. Egypt had been trampled. By its own corrupt rulers. By the hated British occupation. By Israel. Egypt would rise. Ailsa felt she had understood this in the moment of hearing the uncomprehended Arabic. Shared the impulse to be carried up on the music’s religious passion and erotic, revolutionary abandonment.

The European audience shuffled from its seats, stiff and yawning, but in disagreement on the merits of the evening.

‘Bit of a racket.’

‘
Mais sa voix, c’est si belle
.’

‘Thought it was never going to end, didn’t you?’

‘Meeting of East and West.’

‘The old girl’s got a bit of meat on her.’

‘
Herrliche Musik, oder? Aber was bedeutete
…?’

‘Thank God that’s over, I thought I’d pass out. The hysteria. The smell.’

Europeans and Egyptians filed out through two separate doors but were forced to mingle in the hall, under brilliant chandeliers. They hit a bottleneck at the exit, where a group of young men chanted,
Salu Qalbi, Salu Qalbi!

The Europeans pushed forwards. The Egyptians withstood them. Minor officials, excitable and voluble, tried to usher individuals into gaps that weren’t there or to steer them back against the press into the auditorium. As the mass of people swayed to and fro in this bedlam, a lady in a blue silk evening gown stumbled and fell. Screams: someone’s being trampled underfoot!

A flash photograph was taken.

Someone was laying into the Egyptians with his fists.

‘Back! Back!’

Ailsa called to the people behind her, still struggling to leave the auditorium, to give way, move back for pity’s sake. They took no notice. Ailsa put her arms round the pregnant Hedwig to shield her from the crush.

Orders were barked by a voice of authority – some Major in civvies, to judge by the handlebar moustache. The crowd began to shuffle back into the hall, relieving the crush. Joe and Norman Webster pressed forward to a scrum of Britons and Egyptians blocking the entrance. Wrenching the men apart, they cleared a space round the fallen woman:
Dusty, whoa! Not worth it, boy
. Ailsa had heard tales of Joe’s
hot-tempered
pal, Dusty Miller, a pigeon-chested pugilist with a brick-red face and the light of God in his eyes.

‘My specs! I’ve lost my specs!’

Ailsa heard the wail. Bruised and shocked, her gown torn at the bodice, the lady in blue stared round with the naked eyes of the myopic. Joe’s head disappeared from Ailsa’s view. He groped round for the spectacles; fished them up wrecked.

The panicked woman struggled to fit on her mangled spectacles – one lens missing, the bridge cracked. Her husband appeared. Order was restored. Military Police
materialised and marched the demonstrators away. Balked of battle, Dusty disappeared into the crowd.

‘You did well there, Joe,’ Ailsa said. Her husband had kept the peace. He’d restrained the wog-haters, showing the decency that in the end was the core of his character.

Norman, beside himself about the fright his wife had suffered, wanted her to see a doctor. She was not so weak as to faint in such a
trivial
situation, Hedwig said. This is nothing, nothing. A small scuffle. But, yes, she would sit down for a moment.

The Wing Commander crouched beside Hedwig, taking her pulse, asking how she felt, speaking reassuring words to her and her husband.
Habibi
’s big, plain face, not glimpsed by Ailsa for months, seemed ridiculously familiar. He smiled and greeted her affectionately. She resisted the impulse to hug him hallo, wanting to say something about how wonderful Mona had been tonight, share some of the magic with him before it drained away.

But when she saw the look on Joe’s face, Ailsa said nothing of the sort. Taking her husband’s arm, she leaned heavily on him, pretending to feel faint. ‘I’ve come over a bit funny,’ she said. ‘Oh gosh, I’m queasy. Could you take me home now, Joe? I need to go home.’

Soldiers from Moascar had cleared the hundreds who’d assembled to greet and celebrate their adored singer. Ailsa, supported by Joe, walked through an Ismailia emptied of native inhabitants by summary curfew, its mansions lit into creamy glamour by a three-quarters moon. She was fine now, she assured him. Honestly, fine. Just needed a breath of air. The two of them walked dreamily, arms round one another’s waists, heads tilted inwards. The silence was broken only by the muezzin’s call to prayer.

Something in Nia’s yard had been forgotten. She rested back on her heels and looked round. What could it be and where? Sand drifted into the yard from outside, compromising her castles. Whenever Nia turned her back, the desert reached out its hands. It enlarged her monuments but blurred their outlines and finally all her empires slid away into its softness.

Good! Because you could begin all over again.

Nia forgot to look round for traces of whatever it was she’d forgotten. She couldn’t keep her eye on everything.

Ali, the bony boy who collected bottles and cans, stopped outside the garden with his handcart. He waved to Nia and pointed to her door: would she get her mother? Ali had lost one eye and yet he was one of the most beautiful children Mami had ever seen, so she said. The remaining eye was green, like Nia’s but with thick, curly lashes. The dead eye was nearly closed. His hair was a mass of dark curls. Ali stood at the gate, in a short, ragged
night-gown. His skin was very dark, almost black. He wore no shoes.

Nia’s father came out rather than her mother. ‘What is it, girlie?’

‘It’s Ali for bottles.’

Nia knew what he would say: ‘
Imshi! Yallah!
’ with
that
look on his face. Ali would be sent packing with no bottles, guilty of germs and dirt.

Her father paused.

‘Bot-dee-lee-yay, Mr
Effendi
Taffy sir?’

Her father frowned. Bobbing back into the kitchen, he returned with two lemonade bottles and a plate of scraps left over from lunch. He bent and smiled into the boy’s eyes. At once Nia, jealous of the boy, scowled. Ali took the bottles and added them to his collection:
thank you, thank you, Effendi
. He emptied the scraps into a hemp bag and signed to Nia’s father to wait. Rummaging in the same bag, he brought out a piece of bread.

‘
Pita
. For you,
Effendi
.’

Nia trailed her spade over to the gate and stood watching to see what her father would do now.

The boy wanted to give the man his lunch.

‘No, no.’

‘
I-wah
. Yes yes,
qaiis
. Take.’

Nia could smell the bread’s deliciousness. It had just been baked. But she could see the germs from the flies’ feet wriggling on the crust.

Her father accepted the bread. She knew he‘d chuck it away once he got indoors. He’d go,
Ugh! Filth!
For a moment Joe seemed lost for words. He held the bread in one hand, slightly away from his body, and thanked the boy as politely as if he had been an English boy. Feeling in his pocket
amongst the jingling change, he brought out a few piastres, which he handed to the child. Ali lived in a mud house with mud furniture, so Mami had told Irene, who’d murmured, ‘Poor things, they don’t know any better.’

But Ali refused the money. He looked shocked; took several paces back, shaking his head. Baffled, Joe also shook his head. Nia watched her father into the house. Ali waved goodbye to Nia and pushed his cart round the corner. He was a stunted twelve- or thirteen-year-old, Mami had said.

Irene had wondered if the natives ought to be encouraged to come round the Married Quarters scrounging; wasn’t it dangerous? They might take advantage of our kindness and rob us, the menfolk being on duty.

Nia returned to sifting the caramel sand for a cake. She would pour water on this delicious flour and harden it in her bucket like bricks. The sun would bake the cake. She’d cut it into slices with the bread knife, which she had hidden, and share it out equally.

Daddy cast his shadow over her, creeping up behind.

‘Wotcher, Joe
bach
,’ she said without turning.

‘You little monkey.’

‘Wotcher cock.’

‘Now now. You can be clever but you mustn’t be rude. How did you know it was me?’

‘I just do.’

‘What are you making?’

‘A cake. What did you do with that bread?’

‘Oh well, we couldn’t eat it, could we?’

‘No.’

‘Make the most of your sand pit,
cariad
. We’re having topsoil delivered.’

The yard would be transformed, he said. Into a garden! What did she think of that? Seeing Nia’s defiant pout, he explained that he and she would rake the earth and water it. They’d plant seeds and watch wonderful green plants come up and flowers of all colours, pink and purple and white. Jacaranda. Bougainvillaea. Just us, the two of us. You and me together, isn’t it? With your baby wheelbarrow.

‘And, you know, there’s plenty of sand,’ he added. ‘Out there. And most of it in my ears and nose and mouth.’

‘Orifices!’ said Nia.

‘Nia!’

‘What?’

‘Where did you get that? Say it again.’

‘Why?’

‘Well,
cariad
.’ He crouched down. ‘There are some words…’

‘Mami said it.’

‘Ah.’

He had no answer to that. She intuited his distress.

‘She meant
horrid faces
,’ she reassured him.

‘Anyway, I’ve got something for you, girlie. In the market. Couldn’t resist it. Just for Nia. Do you like it?’

‘Golly likes it,’ Nia said, and he had to be content with that. She reserved judgement, for the inside of the fez smelt funny and you had to balance your head to keep it on.

The black, open-topped sports car drew up at the kerb several houses down. Again. The secret lady behind the wheel had swaddled her head in a navy blue silk scarf covered in tiny silver stars, tied round her throat. She wore dark sunglasses and bright red lipstick. Her skin was
like caramel. Nia stared at the lady, who pretended not to be staring back.

‘Come in and have your nap!’ Daddy called from inside the house.

She dragged in, whining that she didn’t want a nap. In her bedroom Nia stood on the bed and looked out through the wire netting. The lady had driven off. She’d come again. Nia knew who she was, although she was supposed to have forgotten. Her name was not supposed to be said. It was a secret between the two of them.

‘What’s that on your head?’ asked Topher. ‘It’s red.’

‘It’s a fez.’

‘It’s got a tassel.’ He fingered the silky tassel with reverence.

‘I know.’

‘Girls don’t wear fezes.’

‘They do.’

‘Don’t.’

‘English girls do.’

In Ish the Egyptian merchants walked down the spacious boulevard of
rue Sultan Hussein
with oiled black moustaches, flicking fly-whisks, their heads topped by a fez. How dignified they looked, how tall and impressive. Daddy said they were a big fat joke. She couldn’t see it.

‘I want a fez,’ Topher moaned.

‘Give it me back, all right, if I let you borrow it?’

The cake was nearly baked. She would cut it now. But where was the knife? She had lost it. Buried it somewhere.

It was boring digging around for a knife. Nia began to disbelieve in the knife. Instead they sloped round to the
shady side of the house and Topher, still wearing the fez, said he would show her his if she would show him hers.

A chipolata sausage, she thought. Well. She raised her shirt and pulled down her knickers. They examined one another.

‘My botty,’ she said.

‘That’s your botty round there.’

‘No, it’s all my botty. Does yours sometimes itch?’

‘No.’

‘Mine does. Sand in the orifice,’ she confided.

They were married, according to Topher. They stared at one another. Nia did not know if he was right – but something had happened between the two of them, she wasn’t sure what. For once Topher was master of the situation. He poked his head forward and puckered his mouth, shutting his eyes; pecked at her mouth with his dry little beak. He seemed pleased and satisfied. Gravely removing the fez, Topher restored it to Nia’s head so that they could go in and see whether there were any cheese straws.

‘You are so sweet with Ali,’ her mother was saying to her father.

‘Of course I am, poor dab.’

‘How touching that he gave you his bread. His mother would have baked it.’

‘Oh aye.’

Nia heard her mother put on her teachy voice, telling her father that the villagers would think it wrong to sell their bread; they’d think it shameful. Bread was sacred and communal. And out of hospitality they kept water on their window sill, if they had a window sill, for the thirsty passer-by. And we called them greedy! Well. She bet the
pita
would have tasted delicious.

‘Great Scott…’

‘Keep your hair on, Joe, what there is of it! I know we couldn’t have eaten it. But – Joe, have you seen the bread knife?’ Mami was rummaging in a drawer.

‘In the drawer?’ came from the other room.

‘I’ve looked there.’

‘Well, don’t flap.’

‘What do you mean, don’t flap? It’s a sharp knife! Joe, will you come and help me look? Nia, you haven’t been touching…?’

‘No, Mami.’

‘Have you been baking at all, Mrs Roberts?’ asked Topher.

‘You’ll have to ask Irene if you can borrow hers,’ came Joe’s voice from the other room.’

‘You go, Joe. No, I haven’t been baking.’

‘I’m busy,’ called Joe, with a yawn that seemed to come from his belly.

‘Oh yes – doing what?’

‘Putting my feet up.’

‘Well put them down, my lad, and march them in to Irene. Will you two children get out from under my feet? Out! Both of you, vamoose until I call you in.’

‘I like your mince pies, Mrs Roberts,’ said Topher as they left. ‘They are savoury.’

Out by the sand-cake Nia fished around for the knife. Nothing. Joe went grumblingly in to Irene and didn’t come out for a while. They could hear laughing from in there. He came out waving a bread knife and Ailsa said, all very well, but where is ours?

‘Your daddy has shown my mummy his pork sausage,’ said Topher. ‘Probably.’

Nia did not reply. How could she know? Then all of a sudden Nia’s back and fezzed head were peppered with ping pong balls. From the sky, a thrill of ping pong balls. Whopping hailstones slammed down all around them. They rushed to gather them, never mind the pain, in a bucket and began to suck them. Sky ice. A wonder in a world of wonders.

Irene was out like a flash.

‘Chris! Come in this minute!’

And Topher was gone. Just like that. Nia placed one hail stone under each armpit and wriggled her entire body in complicated bliss and anguish as they melted.

A blade showed from the sand. Nia reached for it and could not grasp, once she had feathered it free with extreme caution, how this thread-thin line had appeared on her palm, seeping scarlet beads, a shock she greeted with a paroxysm of silence.