by Roald Dahl
I took it from him and examined it closely. ‘You cut it!’ I cried.
‘Cut it?’ he answered softly. ‘Why should I cut it?’
To be perfectly honest, it was impossible for me to judge whether he had or had not cut it. If he had, then he had also taken the trouble to fray the severed ends with some instrument to make it look like an ordinary break. Even so, my guess was that he had cut it, and if I was right then the implications were more sinister than ever.
‘I suppose you know I can’t go on without a fan-belt?’ I said.
He grinned again with that awful mutilated mouth, showing ulcerated gums. ‘If you go now,’ he said, ‘you will boil over in three minutes.’
‘So what do you suggest?’
‘I shall get you another fan-belt.’
‘You will?’
‘Of course. There is a telephone here, and if you will pay for the call, I will telephone to Ismailia. And if they haven’t got one in Ismailia, I will telephone to Cairo. There is no problem.’
‘No problem!’ I shouted, getting out of the car. ‘And when, pray, do you think the fan-belt is going to arrive in this ghastly place?’
‘There is a mail-truck comes through every morning about ten o’clock. You would have it tomorrow.’
The man had all the answers. He never even had to think before replying.
This bastard, I thought, has cut fan-belts before.
I was very alert now, and watching him closely.
‘They will not have a fan-belt for a machine of this make in Ismailia,’ I said. ‘It would have to come from the agents in Cairo. I will telephone them myself.’ The fact that there was a telephone gave me some comfort. The telephone poles had followed the road all the way across the desert, and I could see the two wires leading into the hut from the nearest pole. ‘I will ask the agents in Cairo to set out immediately for this place in a special vehicle,’ I said.
The Arab looked along the road towards Cairo, some two hundred miles away. ‘Who is going to drive six hours here and six hours back to bring a fan-belt?’ he said. ‘The mail will be just as quick.’
‘Show me the telephone,’ I said, starting towards the hut. Then a nasty thought struck me, and I stopped.
How could I possibly use this man’s contaminated instrument? The earpiece would have to be pressed against my ear, and the mouthpiece would almost certainly touch my mouth; and I didn’t give a damn what the doctors said about the impossibility of catching syphilis from remote contact. A syphilitic mouthpiece was a syphilitic mouthpiece, and you wouldn’t catch me putting it anywhere near my lips, thank you very much. I wouldn’t even enter his hut.
I stood there in the sizzling heat of the afternoon and looked at the Arab with his ghastly diseased face, and the Arab looked back at me, as cool and unruffled as you please.
‘You want the telephone?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Can you read English?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Very well. I shall write down for you the name of the agents and the name of this car, and also my own name. They know me there. You will then tell them what is wanted. And listen … tell them to dispatch a special car immediately at my expense. I will pay them well. And if they won’t do that, tell them they have to get the fan-belt to Ismailia in time to catch the mail-truck. You understand?’
‘There is no problem,’ the Arab said.
So I wrote down what was necessary on a piece of paper and gave it to him. He walked away with that slow, stamping tread towards the hut, and disappeared inside. I closed the bonnet of the car. Then I went back and sat in the driver’s seat to think things out.
I poured myself another whisky, and lit a cigarette. There must be some traffic on this road. Somebody would surely come along before nightfall. But would that help me? No, it wouldn’t – unless I were prepared to hitch a ride and leave the Lagonda and all my baggage behind to the tender mercies of the Arab. Was I prepared to do that? I didn’t know. Probably yes. But if I were forced to stay the night, I would lock myself in the car and try to keep awake as much as possible. On no account would I enter the shack where that creature lived. Nor would I touch his food. I had whisky and water, and I had half a watermelon and a slab of chocolate. That was ample.
The heat was pretty bad. The thermometer in the car was still around 104°. It was hotter outside in the sun. I was perspiring freely. My God, what a place to get stranded in! And what a companion!
After about fifteen minutes, the Arab came out of the hut. I watched him all the way to the car.
‘I talked to garage in Cairo,’ he said, pushing his face through the window. ‘Fan-belt will arrive tomorrow by mail-truck. Everything arranged.’
‘Did you ask them about sending it at once?’
‘They said impossible,’ he answered.
‘You’re sure you asked them?’
He inclined his head to one side and gave me that sly insolent grin. I turned away and waited for him to go. He stayed where he was. ‘We have house for visitors,’ he said. ‘You can sleep there very nice. My wife will make food, but you will have to pay.’
‘Who else is here besides you and your wife?’
‘Another man,’ he said. He waved an arm in the direction of the three shacks across the road, and I turned and saw a man standing in the doorway of the middle shack, a short wide man who was dressed in dirty khaki slacks and shirt. He was standing absolutely motionless in the shadow of the doorway, his arms dangling at his sides. He was looking at me.
‘Who is he?’ I said.
‘Saleh.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He helps.’
‘I will sleep in the car,’ I said. ‘And it will not be necessary for your wife to prepare food. I have my own.’ The Arab shrugged and turned away and started back towards the shack where the telephone was. I stayed in the car. What else could I do? It was just after two thirty. In three or four hours’ time it would start to get a little cooler. Then I could take a stroll and maybe hunt up a few scorpions. Meanwhile, I had to make the best of things as they were. I reached into the back of the car where I kept my box of books and, without looking, I took out the first one I touched. The box contained thirty or forty of the best books in the world, and all of them could be reread a hundred times and would improve with each reading. It was immaterial which one I got. It turned out to be The Natural History of Selborne. I opened it at random …
… We had in this village more than twenty years ago an idiot boy, whom I well remember, who, from a child, showed a strong propensity to bees; they were his food, his amusement, his sole object. And as people of this cast have seldom more than one point of view, so this lad exerted all his few faculties on this one pursuit. In winter he dozed away his time, within his father’s house, by the fireside, in a kind of torpid state, seldom departing from the chimney-corner; but in the summer he was all alert, and in quest of his game in the fields, and on sunny banks. Honey-bees, bumble-bees, wasps, were his prey wherever he found them; he had no apprehensions from their stings, but would seize them nudis manibus, and at once disarm them of their weapons, and suck their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes he would fill his bosom, between his shirt and his skin, with a number of these captives, and sometimes confine them to bottles. He was a very merops apiaster, or bee-bird, and very injurious to men that kept bees; for he would slide into their bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the stools, would rap with his fingers on the hives, and so take the bees as they came out. He has been known to overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which he is passionately fond. Where metheglin was making, he would linger around the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of what he called bee-wine. As he ran about, he used to make a humming noise with his lips, resembling the buzzing of bees …
I glanced up from the book and looked around me. The motionless man across the road had disappeared. There was nobody in sight. The silence was eerie, and the stillness, the utter stillness and desol
ation of the place was profoundly oppressive. I knew I was being watched. I knew that every little move I made, every sip of whisky and every puff of a cigarette, was being carefully noticed. I detest violence and I never carry a weapon. But I could have done with one now. For a while, I toyed with the idea of starting the motor and driving on down the road until the engine boiled over. But how far would I get? Not very far in this heat and without a fan. One mile, perhaps, or two at the most …
No – to hell with it. I would stay where I was and read my book.
It must have been about an hour later that I noticed a small dark speck moving towards me along the road in the far distance, coming from the Jerusalem direction. I laid aside my book without taking my eyes away from the speck. I watched it growing bigger and bigger. It was travelling at a great speed, at a really amazing speed. I got out of the Lagonda and hurried to the side of the road and stood there, ready to signal the driver to stop.
Closer and closer it came, and when it was about a quarter of a mile away, it began to slow down. Suddenly, I noticed the shape of its radiator. It was a Rolls-Royce! I raised an arm and kept it raised, and the big green car with a man at the wheel pulled in off the road and stopped beside my Lagonda.
I felt absurdly elated. Had it been a Ford or a Morris, I would have been pleased enough, but I would not have been elated. The fact that it was a Rolls – a Bentley would have done equally well, or an Isotta, or another Lagonda – was a virtual guarantee that I would receive all the assistance I required; for whether you know it or not, there is a powerful brotherhood existing among people who own very costly automobiles. They respect one another automatically, and the reason they respect one another is simply that wealth respects wealth. In point of fact, there is nobody in the world that a very wealthy person respects more than another very wealthy person, and because of this, they naturally seek each other out wherever they go. Recognition signals of many kinds are used among them. With the female, the wearing of massive jewels is perhaps the most common; but the costly automobile is also much favoured, and is used by both sexes. It is a travelling placard, a public declaration of affluence, and as such, it is also a card of membership to that excellent unofficial society, the Very-Wealthy-People’s Union. I am a member myself of long standing, and am delighted to be one. When I meet another member, as I was about to do now, I feel an immediate rapport. I respect him. We speak the same language. He is one of us. I had good reason, therefore, to be elated.
The driver of the Rolls climbed out and came towards me. He was a small dark man with olive skin, and he wore an immaculate white linen suit. Probably a Syrian, I thought. Just possibly a Greek. In the heat of the day he looked as cool as could be.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘Are you having trouble?’
I greeted him, and then, bit by bit, I told him everything that had happened.
‘My dear fellow,’ he said in perfect English, ‘but my dear fellow, how very distressing. What rotten luck. This is no place to get stranded in.’
‘It isn’t, is it?’
‘And you say that a new fan-belt has definitely been ordered?’
‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘if I can rely upon the proprietor of this establishment.’
The Arab, who had emerged from his shack almost before the Rolls had come to a stop, now joined us, and the stranger proceeded to question him swiftly in Arabic about the steps he had taken on my behalf. It seemed to me that the two knew each other pretty well, and it was clear that the Arab was in great awe of the new arrival. He was practically crawling along the ground in his presence.
‘Well – that seems to be all right,’ the stranger said at last, turning to me. ‘But quite obviously you won’t be able to move on from here until tomorrow morning. Where were you headed for?’
‘Jerusalem,’ I said. ‘And I don’t relish the idea of spending the night in this infernal spot.’
‘I should say not, my dear man. That would be most uncomfortable.’ He smiled at me, showing exceptionally white teeth. Then he took out a cigarette case, and offered me a cigarette. The case was gold, and on the outside of it there was a thin line of green jade inlaid diagonally from corner to corner. It was a beautiful thing. I accepted the cigarette. He lit it for me, then lit his own.
The stranger took a long pull at his cigarette, inhaling deeply. Then he tilted back his head and blew the smoke up into the sun. ‘We shall both get heat-stroke if we stand around here much longer,’ he said. ‘Will you permit me to make a suggestion?’
‘But of course.’
‘I do hope you won’t consider it presumptuous, coming from a complete stranger …’
‘Please …’
‘You can’t possibly remain here, so I suggest you come back and stay the night in my house.’
There! The Rolls-Royce was smiling at the Lagonda – smiling at it as it would never have smiled at a Ford or a Morris!
‘You mean in Ismailia?’ I said.
‘No, no,’ he answered, laughing. ‘I live just around the corner, just over there.’ He waved a hand in the direction he had come from.
‘But surely you were going to Ismailia? I wouldn’t want you to change your plans on my behalf.’
‘I wasn’t going to Ismailia at all,’ he said. ‘I was coming down here to collect the mail. My house – and this may surprise you – is quite close to where we are standing. You see that mountain? That’s Maghara. I’m immediately behind it.’
I looked at the mountain. It lay about ten miles to the north, a yellow rocky lump, perhaps two thousand feet high. ‘Do you really mean that you have a house in the middle of all this … this wasteland?’ I asked.
‘You don’t believe me?’ he said, smiling.
‘Of course I believe you,’ I answered. ‘Nothing surprises me any more. Except, perhaps,’ and here I smiled back at him, ‘except when I meet a stranger in the middle of the desert, and he treats me like a brother. I am overwhelmed by your offer.’
‘Nonsense, my dear fellow. My motives are entirely selfish. Civilized company is not easy to come by in these parts. I am quite thrilled at the thought of having a guest for dinner. Permit me to introduce myself – Abdul Aziz.’ He made a quick little bow.
‘Oswald Cornelius,’ I said. ‘It is a great pleasure.’ We shook hands.
‘I live partly in Beirut,’ he said.
‘I live in Paris.’
‘Charming. And now – shall we go? Are you ready?’
‘But my car,’ I said. ‘Can I leave it here safely?’
‘Have no fear about that. Omar is a friend of mine. He’s not much to look at, poor chap, but he won’t let you down if you’re with me. And the other one, Saleh, is a good mechanic. He’ll fit your new fan-belt when it arrives tomorrow. I’ll tell him now.’
Saleh, the man from across the road, had walked over while we were talking. Mr Aziz gave him his instructions. He then spoke to both men about guarding the Lagonda. He was brief and incisive. Omar and Saleh stood bowing and scraping. I went across to the Lagonda to get a suitcase. I needed a change of clothes badly.
‘Oh, by the way,’ Mr Aziz called over to me, ‘I usually put on a black tie for dinner.’
‘Of course,’ I murmured, quickly pushing back my first choice of suitcase and taking another.
‘I do it for the ladies mostly. They seem to like dressing themselves up for dinner.’
I turned sharply and looked at him, but he was already getting into his car.
‘Ready?’ he said.
I took the suitcase and placed it in the back of the Rolls. Then I climbed into the front seat beside him, and we drove off.
During the drive, we talked casually about this and that. He told me that his business was in carpets. He had offices in Beirut and Damascus. His forefathers, he said, had been in the trade for hundreds of years.
I mentioned that I had a seventeenth-century Damascus carpet on the floor of my bedroom in Paris.
‘You don’t mean it!’ he cried, n
early swerving off the road with excitement. ‘Is it silk and wool, with the warp made entirely of silk? And has it got a ground of gold and silver threads?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Exactly.’
‘But my dear fellow! You mustn’t put a thing like that on the floor!’
‘It is touched only by bare feet,’ I said.
That pleased him. It seemed that he loved carpets almost as much as I loved the blue vases of Tchin-Hoa.
Soon we turned left off the tarred road on to a hard stony track and headed straight over the desert towards the mountain. ‘This is my private driveway,’ Mr Aziz said. ‘It is five miles long.’
‘You are even on the telephone,’ I said, noticing the poles that branched off the main road to follow his private drive.
And then suddenly a queer thought struck me.
That Arab at the filling-station … he also was on the telephone …
Might not this, then, explain the fortuitous arrival of Mr Aziz?
Was it possible that my lonely host had devised a clever method of shanghai-ing travellers off the road in order to provide himself with what he called ‘civilized company’ for dinner? Had he, in fact, given the Arab standing instructions to immobilize the cars of all likely-looking persons one after the other as they came along? ‘Just cut the fan-belt, Omar. Then phone me up quick. But make sure it’s a decent-looking fellow with a good car. Then I’ll pop along and see if I think he’s worth inviting to the house …’
It was ridiculous, of course.
‘I think,’ my companion was saying, ‘that you are wondering why in the world I should choose to have a house out here in a place like this.’
‘Well, yes. I am a bit.’
‘Everyone does,’ he said.
‘Everyone,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said.
Well, well, I thought – everyone.
‘I live here,’ he said, ‘because I have a peculiar affinity with the desert. I am drawn to it the same way as a sailor is drawn to the sea. Does that seem so very strange to you?’
‘No,’ I answered, ‘it doesn’t seem strange at all.’