Free The Bride Box by Michael Pearce Page B

fortnight?’
    They looked at him blankly.
    Mahmoud sighed and made them file past him. ‘Can you see them?’ he whispered to the clerk.
    â€˜Effendi, I can see them,’ the clerk whispered back. ‘But the men who came to the station are not amongst them!’
    â€˜Look once more!’
    He made the men file past again, but with the same result. ‘Effendi, I do not see them,’ said the clerk worriedly. ‘I really don’t!’
    â€˜Are all the men here?’ Mahmoud asked Ismail.
    â€˜They are all here, Effendi.’
    Mahmoud got down from the cart and walked over to the men. ‘Are you all here?’ he asked. ‘No one is missing?’
    The men looked at each other. ‘No one is missing, Effendi. We are all here.’
    Mahmoud was nonplussed. He had counted on the clerk being able to identify them. He made them file past once more but again drew a blank. He knew he would have to let them go.
    He saw Ismail looking at him with an air of triumph, and made one last attempt. ‘None of you has been to Denderah recently?’
    They looked at him blankly.
    â€˜It concerns a bride box,’ he said.
    There was a flicker of interest.
    â€˜A bride box which was taken to the station in Denderah and put on the train.’
    He was losing them. Bride boxes were within their experience; trains, however …
    â€˜And sent to the Pasha,’ he tried desperately.
    That was interesting. It was even funny. A bride box! For the Pasha!
    But it didn’t register particularly with the men as it should have.
    â€˜They can go now?’ asked Ismail, almost insolently.
    Mahmoud made one last try. ‘Have any of you a bride box in your house?’
    One or two nodded.
    â€˜And still have? None have been sent away lately?’
    They shook their heads.
    â€˜Effendi,’ said Ismail, ‘there is another consideration. To take a bride box to the station at Denderah would require a cart. A cart could come only from here and no cart could be moved without my permission. My permission has not been given. Nor has it been sought. You are asking at the wrong place; asking the wrong people.’

    Mahmoud had to let them go. He got four of them to take the cart he had borrowed back to the outhouse. The men went away and shortly afterwards he saw the clerk, standing beside the barn, much relieved. He left the yard behind some women returning to the kitchen who had been interested in the spectacle and could hear them talking.
    â€˜Bride box!’ one of them sighed. ‘I had a bride box once. Ah, those were the days!’
    â€˜Mine was green and orange,’ said another woman wistfully. ‘And blue for the sky.’
    â€˜Mine had birds.’
    â€˜And mine had fish.’
    â€˜I had a bird
catching
a fish!’
    â€˜Beautiful!’
    â€˜Ah, those were the days.’
    The party broke up.
    â€˜Are you coming in?’
    â€˜No, I’ve got to get back to the other house.’
    â€˜Other house?’ Mahmoud, overhearing, asked them.
    They turned to look at him.
    â€˜Yes, the other house.’
    â€˜What house is this?’
    â€˜It is where the Pasha’s wife lives now that she does not live with him.’
    â€˜Another house? Does she have servants?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    â€˜Servants of her own? They would not have been with the others?’
    â€˜You asked only for men on the estate.’
    â€˜Why was I not told?’ said Mahmoud furiously.
    He knew, really. This was Ismail’s revenge.
    â€˜There is this one, which the Pasha uses when he is here. The other is for his wife.’
    â€˜And the son.’
    â€˜There is a son?’
    â€˜In a manner of speaking.’
    There was a ripple of amusement.
    â€˜
She
’s the master there!’ someone said.

    Behind the temple were the mountains, pink and as if floating in the air, with satiny sand drifts heaped in the rifts in the rock and lines of