Beneath a Burning Sky

by Jenny Ashcroft

Nailah stepped back.

  He moved forward again. A dance.

  With a new urgency she turned on her heel and rounded the corner into the first of the criss-crossed streets that led to the house. Voices carried down through open windows: scolding words, barked orders, laughter. The tones leeched into the hot air, mixing with the tang of cooking and dung. Nailah stole a glance over her shoulder. It was him. It really was. Her heart knocked. It had been so long… so, so long. Her sandals thwacked, his smart heels clicked in alternate rhythm.

  She reached the alley behind her street and hurried into it, her legs moving under a momentum of their own. And then she stopped. She turned.

  ‘Nailah.’

  Her stomach rippled at the sound of her name. His voice, so rich and insistent. She backed towards the wall. The two of them were hidden in the shadows of the tenements, and so close that if Nailah moved, she could touch him. Her eyes moved over his smart clothes, his aquiline nose, the diagonal cut of his jaw; she watched as he threw a look from left to right, squinting at the crowds moving to and fro at either end of the alleyway, assessing, judging.

  ‘No one will see us,’ she said breathlessly, ‘no one comes here.’ It was a mean corridor, all but forgotten by even its nearest neighbours. It was why she’d chosen it. ‘It’s just rubbish and rats here.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ he said.

  ‘No…’

  His lips curved cheekily. ‘I meant about the rubbish and rats. Me?’ He placed his hand on his heart. ‘I’ve been called worse. But I can’t allow such an insult to you to pass.’

  A laugh bubbled in Nailah; it loosened her shoulders for the first time in weeks.

  Kafele grinned. And suddenly he was no longer a businessman in fancy tailoring, but a boy from the streets. Her boy. The one who’d grown up in the same crumbling house as her, each of them in rented rooms much like the one Nailah was in now. Kafele had lived with his ailing grandfather back then, supporting him until the day he died, running errands for stallholders, buying from and selling to farmers, earning, always earning. But he’d come to Nailah every night, no matter how long his day, and would lift her from loneliness with his stories, his ambition. They’d sit for hours on the floorboards, plotting their future together: the grand house they’d live in, the places they’d travel, the things they would see. The two of them had been building plans for a better life ever since they’d been old enough to dream.

  He took her basket and set it on the floor. ‘I’ve been wanting to do that since you bought that watermelon. It’s nearly as big as you.’

  ‘How long have you been watching me?’

  ‘Since you left the baths.’

  ‘Were you waiting for me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Nailah’s smile grew.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘why were you going so fast? You weren’t running away from me, were you?’

  She lowered her head, eyeing him through her lashes in just the way the other maids at the Pashas’ had used to practise. ‘To you.’

  He exhaled noisily. ‘Good.’

  ‘Clown.’

  He chuckled. The warmth of the sound washed through Nailah, and the long weeks since she’d last heard it, hidden beneath the swaying shade of the Pashas’ jacaranda trees, almost disappeared. Almost. ‘I’ve missed you,’ she said.

  His smile became sad. ‘I called in at the Pashas’ yesterday,’ he said, ‘after I got back from Cairo. I had to talk to Benjamin about suppliers for his hotel there.’

  Nailah nodded. She knew how important the Pashas’ business was to Kafele. He was building up his trade as a middleman, selling produce from farmers on to ever-bigger hotels and restaurants. Benjamin Pasha had been buying from him for his Alexandria establishments for some time, but Cairo was a new opportunity. One day, Kafele hoped to supply all of the Pashas’ hotels, beyond Egypt and into the rest of Africa.

  ‘When I finished with Benjamin,’ Kafele said, ‘I went into the garden, even though I knew you wouldn’t be there.’ He laughed ruefully. ‘I waited for you.’

  ‘You waited for me?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Oh.’ Nailah’s heart ballooned. She pictured him on the lawn, bursting with energy after an hour in Benjamin Pasha’s study, jacket slung over his arm. She imagined the shadow of leaves on his white shoulders, herself coming towards him, smart in uniform instead of the stained, rough robe she wore now, hugging the trees so no one from the house would see her. His joy when he spotted her, as wide and open as it had ever been when they were children playing in the street, back before anyone could have known he’d grow up to be so very successful, she nothing more than a drudge stuck in the slums.

  She sighed and looked down at her toes, dusty again already. Fleas hopped around her feet; she moved instinctively, squashing one, then cursed herself for the unnecessary death.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Kafele said, ‘about Tabia. I came back from Cairo as soon as I could…’

  She pressed her lips together, she didn’t want to talk about it.

  But Kafele persisted. His voice was soft with regret as he said, ‘I shouldn’t have stayed away. It’s just there was so much to do, and Benjamin gave me contacts for some new customers…’ He grimaced apologetically. ‘Has anyone been helping? Your mother?’

  ‘Not her,’ said Nailah. Isa hadn’t even come home to pay her respects when Tabia was killed. Her own sister. I’m in the middle of a tour of the backwaters, she had written. We have shows every night. My voice isn’t as strong as it used to be and I’ve been finding it harder to find dancing work lately, when a tour like this comes along I have to take it. We’ll need the money more than ever with Cleo and Babu to look after… don’t be cross with me, my love. Her letters had been as infrequent as a desert rainstorm in summer ever since. Nailah had learnt to expect nothing more.

  ‘Someone else then?’ said Kafele.

  ‘Who else is there?’ asked Nailah. ‘Tabia’s parents are dead, and as for the children’s father…’ She broke off. She wouldn’t waste words on him, that coward who had abandoned Tabia in childbed and run back to his village within an hour of seeing the shape of Babu’s head.

  Kafele said, ‘I wish I could take it all from you.’

  ‘I wish she hadn’t died.’ Nailah’s voice cracked. She took a breath, then another, trying to get herself under control. But under Kafele’s pained stare, the fight went out of her. The thoughts she normally struggled so hard to mute, rose up. All she could see was Tabia: her aunt, her warm, beautiful aunt. ‘You’re here, habibi,’ Tabia would say whenever Nailah called in on her free time from the Pashas’, as though it were the greatest gift. She’d rise from whatever she was doing – cooking, or washing, or massaging Babu’s head – and take Nailah in her arms. Even now, Nailah could smell her sweet scent, see the curve of her lips. She could almost hear her throaty laugh. She could almost…’Oh.’ She pressed her knuckles into her eyes.

  Kafele took a step towards her.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Nailah said, ‘please. Ignore me. You mustn’t worry, please, I don’t want you to.’

  Kafele held out his fingers. She waited for him to drop them as he always did, but instead he stroked her face. At the shock of his skin on hers, she closed her eyes, losing herself, for just a few short breaths, in his touch. But much as she’d dreamed of this moment, as she wanted it to go on, a tear slid from her at its coming. For Kafele had sworn that he wouldn’t do her the dishonour of coming near her until they were married, once he had made enough money that they wouldn’t have to raise their family in these slums. He’d told her a thousand times that he wanted to wait to feel her; she was worth waiting for. And now he had broken his word.

  It felt like the ending of a dream.

  She reached up and squeezed his hand with her shaking one, removing it from her face. She felt anger replace her sadness. It was the way that life, which just a few short weeks ago had been so blessed, had turned so wrong.

  And now this news of Ma�
�am Gray.

  Nailah met Kafele’s pained gaze, wondering if he’d heard anything of her fate, or the questions that were being asked around town.

  She told him what the women in the bathhouse had been saying about the police, the officer at the mosque.

  He said he knew nothing of it. ‘Why are you worried? What do you care about Clara Gray?’

  Nailah studied a nick in her big toenail. ‘I just don’t like to think of her coming to harm.’

  ‘There’s something else bothering you, I can tell.’

  Nailah kept her eyes cast down, fighting the urge to confide. It was the first time she’d done such a thing with Kafele, and it hurt. But she swallowed her secrets, her fears; tempted as she was, she didn’t even tell him about the soldiers who’d come to Tabia’s hut, the day after Tabia was killed. She couldn’t. Once she started talking, she wouldn’t be able to stop.

  She shifted uncomfortably, though, remembering the soldiers’ visit; they’d come just as she and the children were packing to leave. She’d recognised the tall handsome officer, the captain, instantly – he’d often been at the Pashas’ dinners, their balls; all the maids had used to spy on him – although he hadn’t seemed to know her. He had told her such a strange story about Tabia being a cotton worker he wished to help. Tabia, who had never worked a mill in her life, but made her money from selling eggs. Nailah hadn’t had the nerve to confront him on his lie. And when he’d enquired after what had brought the children into her care, she’d fibbed herself, letting him think she was just an acquaintance of Tabia’s. She had been too wary, with everything going on, to admit how she was related to Tabia, or where she was taking the children to live. She’d sensed, from the considered look the captain gave her, that he knew she was holding things back. As for the other soldier, the bald-headed Egyptian, he had stared at Nailah, as though he’d read her mind if he could.

  ‘Nailah?’ said Kafele, pulling her back into the moment. ‘What’s wrong?’

  She said it was nothing. ‘I just want to know who that officer was at the mosque.’ If it was the same captain who’d been at Tabia’s, then he might have started to guess…

  Kafele said, ‘You can talk to me, Nailah, you know that, don’t you? Tell me anything, no matter what.’

  Nailah made no reply. Kafele kept his eyes on her, clearly waiting for her to speak. As the silence lengthened, he sighed and said, ‘I’ll ask around, find out what I can.’

  Nailah exhaled. ‘Thank you.’

  He smiled, the most troubled one Nailah had ever seen on his face. Then his eyes flicked towards the end of the alleyway. ‘Son of a dog.’ He darted away, flattening himself against the far wall. ‘I don’t think he saw me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sweet Mother, Nailah, who d’you think?’

  Nailah turned to peer down the passage’s grimy light. Her mouth turned to dust at the unmistakable silhouette of her mother and Tabia’s brother, Uncle Jahi, in the street beyond.

  ‘He hasn’t seen us.’ Kafele exhaled. ‘He’d be here already if he had. We’re safe.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nailah. Even so, as she reached down for her basket to leave, her body was heavy with foreboding.

  ‘I wish you didn’t have to go,’ said Kafele. ‘I want to keep you here with me.’

  ‘I want you to, too,’ she said, eyes locked on Jahi’s solidity. ‘But you can’t.’ Not until we’re married. If they ever would be, now. If only Kafele hadn’t touched her. She longed to ask him if it meant what she feared, but was afraid that if she said another word, she’d weep. So she left the words unspoken. And with them, all those things that Jahi knew of her and which he, Kafele, could never be allowed to discover.

  Moving before Jahi could spot her or Kafele, she left, feet dragging as she made her way to the opposite end of the alleyway from where Jahi stood. She cast one final look back at Kafele, so worried and smart and completely motionless as he stared after her, then carried on, up and around through the crowded parallel street, sidestepping the mounds of donkey dung, fingers tight on her basket. By the time she had circled around to her front door, Jahi was walking towards it himself, one finger held to his closely cropped beard, apparently lost in thought.

  ‘As-salaam,’ she said, dipping her head as he approached. Tall and broad, he towered above her in the sunlight: her uncle who held such secrets.

  ‘Ah, Nailah.’ He bit his lip as he studied her, revealing his crooked front tooth, the only weakness in his swarthy face. Half the women in the neighbourhood were in love with him, Sana most of all, despite her husband, and two brats. She was on the street corner now, watching him through her veil with hungry eyes. ‘You’ve been to the market I see,’ Jahi said, with a nod at Nailah’s shopping.

  Nailah glanced down at the watermelon, balanced precariously on the top of the other groceries, ready to topple.

  ‘You look troubled.’ Jahi’s face shadowed with a look Nailah could almost think was concern. ‘Are you?’

  Nailah made no answer. She didn’t need to. Her uncle knew all too well how she felt.

  He sighed. ‘We’d better go inside. We have a deal to discuss, you and I.’

  Chapter Nine

  Over in Ramleh, Olivia woke late, groggy from a disjointed slumber, and too warm after turning restlessly all night. She squinted at the light filling the room, and put her hand to her temple, wincing as recollection of the previous day’s events washed through her with sickening speed. She closed her eyes, trying to block the reality for even a few moments more. But her mind filled with Clara: her pink face, so concerned yesterday, on the Rue Cherif Pasha; the swing of her skirt as she disappeared into the crowds. I am rather gasping for a drink. Had she even had one? Would she still be here if Olivia hadn’t insisted she go on ahead? Olivia drew a sharp breath; the question hurt too much. And as for thoughts of Edward… I don’t know how much longer this can go on. She pulled her sheet over her face, as though the linen could do a thing to block out her fear of his leaving. To think how relieved she’d felt to see him standing there, so sure he’d be able to make things better, since he always did. She’d never expected him to be so guarded. She knew she should be trying to work out what his secrecy meant; yet all she could grasp was that she might be about to lose him too, and that a life absent of him felt even more impossible than one together. She didn’t know how she might begin to stand it.

  Her face grew damp with sweat. It was so bloody hot. She threw the sheet from her. Paper rustled. Alistair had left a message. It echoed, in somewhat brusquer tones, Edward’s request that Olivia under no circumstances leave the house; Alistair would be back for dinner. Wait for me to eat. Make sure it’s something light, I imagine I’ll be late. She scrunched up the embossed paper and threw it at the wastepaper basket, missing. As if she was just going to sit here all day. No, she would go to Clara’s, find that letter in the study. She swung herself to standing, then held out her hands to steady herself as her head swam from the sudden movement. Her clock told her it was almost noon, even later than she’d thought.

  Intent on escaping the house unseen, she got herself into her riding habit alone. She held her breath as she forced the buttons of her navy skirt into place, then the clasps on her double-breasted jacket. She skulked out to the stables and saddled up Bea. As she mounted, she thanked Edward silently for his lessons, trying to ignore her guilt at using them to go against him now.

  As she rode away, Ada ran out of the house, a laundered petticoat in her hand. The fluttering linen might have looked like a flag of surrender had Ada’s tiny body not been moving so quickly, her cockney voice yelling, ‘Stop,’ so loudly. Olivia shouted back that she was going for a long ride, she would be quite some time. Ada’s stare was incredulous, but short of tackling Olivia to the ground, what could she do? Olivia dug her heels into Bea’s side and cantered away.

  There were two Egyptian police at the gate of Clara’s mansion, stiff and uniformed, their set-faced presence a horrible reminder, as if Olivi
a needed it, of what had happened. She nodded at them and carried on into the driveway. In contrast to the arid landscape outside, Clara’s front garden was filled with colour. The lawn glistened smugly from its morning watering. Flower beds overflowed with purple and pink agapanthus and the white roses Clara was so proud of cultivating. (See, I can be clever when I try. Sugar water, that’s the key; it’s a trick I stole from the Pashas. Although, small sigh, I suppose that makes me a thief, and not really clever at all.) Orange trees clustered by the stable side of the veranda, lush with tangy fruit. (‘Try one, Livvy, they’re positively bursting with sunshine.) Olivia couldn’t look at them.

  Instead, her gaze settled on Clara’s driver, Hassan, washing the carriage. His dark head was bare, hair shining, the sleeves of his white tunic were rolled up to reveal muscular arms; so exotic it was almost obscene. The footman who had stayed in town yesterday appeared from one of the outhouses. He stalked over to the carriage, threw his tarboosh on the ground, wiped sweat from his forehead, then took up a cloth. He said not a word to Hassan. Olivia wondered if he was angry about the wasted hours he’d spent in the square. His sulky face, observed from the corner of her eye, gave nothing away.

  She dismounted clumsily, limbs stiff with self-consciousness in front of Hassan after the scene he’d witnessed between her and Alistair the night before. She set her sights on the stables and pulled on Bea’s reins. Bea stuck her hooves into the gravel. Olivia yanked again. Ordinarily Bea was a compliant horse, but today something had unsettled her.

  ‘Do you need help, Ma’am Sheldon?’ Hassan called.

  ‘Thank you, I’m fine,’ Olivia replied, eyes fixed on Bea. ‘Come on, now.’ She thwacked her with her crop and nearly keeled backwards as Bea started into motion.

  She took her time in the stables; she brushed Bea down, undid her own jacket and fanned inside the chest of her clammy bodice, then fetched oats for Bea to munch. Even so, Hassan was still damned well in the driveway when she came out again.