The Bride Box

by Michael Pearce

  ‘The Parquet,’ said Mahmoud. ‘And this is the Mamur Zapt.’

  Owen was never sure how well the title was known outside Cairo, but there was a little ripple of astonishment in the crowd that had gathered. Owen and Mahmoud didn’t mind the crowd. Sometimes it had its advantages.

  ‘What do you want from us?’ said Mustapha sullenly.

  ‘The truth. What is the name of the man you sold her to?’

  ‘I … I do not know. I have told you!’

  Mustapha shook his head unhappily.

  ‘You don’t know? Or you won’t tell?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Your daughter goes to a house and you don’t know where it is?’

  ‘A long way away,’ muttered the basket maker.

  ‘Ah, there I believe you,’ said Mahmoud.

  ‘What is this?’ Mustapha broke out angrily. ‘Why do you question me? She wished to get married; a man made a good offer – what is wrong with that?’

  ‘And you cannot tell me the name of the man, nor the place of his home? Good offer, indeed! Would her mother have thought so? Her true mother?’

  ‘When you have five children, you cannot do as well for them as you would like. She knew she would have to marry. In our village all the children know that. She had known that for a long time.’

  ‘Long enough to make ready a bride box?’

  ‘The offer came sooner than I had expected.’

  ‘So she didn’t have a bride box? Unlike her sister?’

  ‘Her sister had a bride box, certainly. She had more time to prepare one.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mahmoud. ‘I have seen it.’

  There was a stir of amazement in the crowd.

  A woman pushed through the people. She was poorly dressed and didn’t wear a veil. Her cheeks were cut with tribal marks and her hands were dyed with henna. She was shouting angrily, ‘What is this? What is this? What are you doing with my man?’

  ‘Asking questions,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Which have to be answered.’

  ‘What questions?’

  ‘About your daughters. Your new daughters. The ones who were in your husband’s house when you came but are not there now.’

  ‘Well, what of it?’ the woman said, more warily. ‘They have gone away, that is all. Who asks these questions?’

  ‘The police,’ said someone in the crowd.

  ‘The police? Hah!’ the woman scoffed. ‘What do I care about the police?’

  ‘The police from Cairo.’

  The woman put her hand over her mouth and stood for a moment looking uncertainly around her. Then she sat down on the ground beside her husband.

  ‘Is there an omda?’ asked Mahmoud, referring to a village headman.

  ‘Yes, Effendi.’

  ‘Fetch him.’

  It took a little time. Meanwhile, Owen and Mahmoud sat patiently there on the ground, the crowd growing all the time. The people sat there quietly, but Owen knew they were taking everything in. That could be helpful later, if only as a check on what the basket maker had said. In a village like this everyone knew everything. What was perhaps more to the point, they know what was not being said.

  At last a man came pushing through the crowd. He looked worried. ‘Effendis?’

  ‘Salaam Aleikhum,’ said Owen and Mahmoud together, politely.

  ‘And to you, Salaam!’ returned the omda.

  ‘I am from the Parquet,’ said Mahmoud, ‘and this is the Mamur Zapt.’

  There was no doubt about the Mamur Zapt being known to the omda. He became tense. ‘You come from Cairo?’ he said. ‘It is a long way.’

  ‘Even there we hear of things. We hear, for example, that children have gone missing from your village.’

  The omda went still. ‘One of them went to get married,’ he said, after a moment.

  ‘So it is said. And the other?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘The one who went to get married: do you know the name of the man to whom she was to be married or the place of her new home? No? Is that the way things are done in Denderah?’

  The omda was silent for a moment. ‘It is the way they were done on this occasion,’ he said quietly. ‘But not the way they should have been done. I knew nothing about it until after she was gone.’

  ‘Did you not make enquiries?’

  ‘We wondered, and asked. But her father said that he had received a good offer and that the matter had to be closed quickly.’

  ‘Without any celebration?’

  ‘There would be celebrations, her father told us. But they could be elsewhere.’

  ‘How could you be sure she was to be wed?’

  ‘She took her bride box, Effendi.’

  ‘And so you thought that …?’

  ‘What else could it mean?’

  ‘I have seen the bride box,’ said Mahmoud. ‘But not the things that she put in it. Have you seen them?’

  ‘No, Effendi!’ said the omda, shocked. ‘How could we?’

  ‘I think they may have been tipped out and left. In which case they must be lying around somewhere. Perhaps not far from the village. And if they were left like that, some of them may have been found and brought back here. Have they been?’

  The omda, still shocked, turned to the villagers. ‘Have they?’ he asked.

  There was a mutter of denial.

  ‘Look for them,’ said Mahmoud. ‘And if you find them, bring them to me. No one will be punished just for having these things, but I need to know about them.’

  ‘They were Soraya’s things!’ a woman said indignantly. ‘She was making ready for her wedding. They should not have been treated like that!’

  ‘Where is Soraya?’ someone asked.

  Owen and Mahmoud exchanged glances. Owen nodded.

  ‘She is dead,’ said Mahmoud.

  Mustapha’s new wife collapsed, weeping. Mustapha bowed his head to the ground and seemed to be trying to push his face into the sand. Some women at the back of the crowd began to wail.

  There was no lock-up in the village. There was no constable, either. Mahmoud told Mustapha and his wife to stay in their house and made the omda responsible for seeing to it. Then he and Owen walked over to the village well and sat down on the little mud-brick wall that was built around it. People would come to them, they knew; but it would take time.

  First, the omda himself came. ‘Would Your Excellencies like tea?’ he said anxiously. ‘Or perhaps beer?’

  ‘No beer, thank you,’ said Mahmoud.

  Owen shook his head. ‘Tea would be welcome,’ he said.

  Shortly afterwards a woman brought them tea, the bitter, black tea of the fellahin, on a wicker work tray. Afterwards she continued to stand there.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The body needs seeing to, Effendi,’ she said.

  It was a rule that the body should be buried the day the person died.

  ‘That cannot be in this case,’ said Mahmoud. ‘The body is in Cairo. It is being seen to.’

  ‘It should be seen to by those that knew her,’ said the woman.

  ‘That cannot be.’

  The woman stood for a while, then accepted it. ‘And what of Leila?’ she asked.

  ‘Leila is in Cairo, too,’ said Owen. ‘She is well and in safe hands.’

  ‘God be praised!’

  ‘Perform such rites as you can,’ said Mahmoud.

  The woman nodded and went away and shortly afterwards the wailing rose in volume. It sounded as if all the women of the village were taking part – and perhaps they were.

  The wailing continued all night and was still going on when they woke up the next morning. They had been taken to a house to spend the night and given food. In the morning when they went out the women were already busy drawing up water from the well.

  Owen and Mahmoud went and stood by them.

  ‘Is it true, Effendi, what you said about Leila?’ one of them asked quietly.

  ‘It is true, yes.’

  ‘Inshal
lah! God be praised!’

  ‘How did it come about that she was allowed to go? What sort of village is this?’

  ‘No one knew, Effendi. It was all done by the father and he told no one else. We had heard that slavers were in the district but no one had seen them. Mustapha must have sought them out.’

  ‘And Soraya? The same?’

  ‘Perhaps, Effendi. I do not know. She had disappeared some days before. Again in the night, and silently. Again it was her father’s doing. But, Effendi …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The cases are not the same. Soraya must have thought she was going to be wed, for she took her bride box with her. Perhaps her father had told her some story.’

  ‘And then sold her to the slavers?’

  ‘Perhaps. But …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Would the slavers have killed a pretty girl? Surely not! They would have kept her alive and sold her. She would have fetched a good price.’

  ‘I thought the slavers had gone from Egypt,’ Mahmoud said. ‘How comes it that they are here?’

  ‘I don’t know. I had thought those days were over, too. I remember when I was a child – well, we would see the slaving caravans sometimes. And then we would run indoors and our mothers would hide us. And they would say to their husbands: “If my child goes, you will not wake up tomorrow!” I remember my own mother saying that. Not that my father would have sold us.’ The woman laughed, tenderly. ‘He wouldn’t have sold me for the world. But some men would. Well, that was long ago! Those days are past.’

  ‘They should be,’ said Mahmoud. ‘How comes it that they are not?’

  ‘It is the Pashas!’ said the woman bitterly. ‘There is one law for the rich and another for the poor. And what makes the law is money.’

  Owen and Mahmoud continued to sit on at the well. They both knew that it was the way you had to do business in an Egyptian village. It was no good going round and questioning as you might in Cairo. In the village you had to wait for them to come to you. And there was a lot of thinking to be done before that would happen.

  Although they were in the shade of the palms, the heat increased steadily. The centre of the village was now almost deserted. And yet there was something agreeable about just sitting there dozing. The doves gurgled in the palm trees, there was the occasional bray of a donkey and always, in the background, the continual creak of the water wheel by the river. It was peaceful, and even Mahmoud, with all the restlessness of a city dweller, succumbed to the effect.

  At last the omda came up again and hovered uneasily. ‘What is it that Your Excellencies wish to know, Effendis?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘About the slavers,’ said Owen.

  ‘If I could tell you, I would, Effendi, but there is little to tell. We heard that they were in the area and I couldn’t believe it. They have not been here since my father’s time. But so it was whispered. And the whispers grew. “How can this be?” I asked. But no one could answer me. “Keep the children indoors!” I said. And it was done. Except that Mustapha must have seen his chance and went out to seek them. Effendi, I cannot understand such evil! But this is a poor village and when men are in need they do evil things.’

  ‘Where did they come from?’ asked Owen. ‘The slavers?’

  ‘The Sudan, I think. It is not far from here, at a camel ride. And the border is uncertain.’

  ‘And where do they go to?’

  ‘No one knows, Effendi, but surely it must be to the coast. People are not bought and sold in Egypt these days. Not openly.’

  ‘To the coast, then. And where on the coast?’

  ‘There are ports in the Sudan.’

  ‘If there were whispers when they came, there will be whispers when they go. I would like to hear those whispers.’

  ‘You shall, Effendi.’

  The object of Mahmoud’s inquiries was not the same as that of Owen’s. Although Mahmoud was just as concerned as Owen about the slave issue – possibly more, since he took it personally as an affront to Egypt and yet more evidence of the country falling short of his ideals – what he was here for was to find out what had happened to Soraya. And, he thought, he was making progress. The clerk at the railway halt would surely be able to identify the men who had brought the box to the station. He might be unwilling to but he would be able to.

  And surely, thought Mahmoud, he knew enough now to be able to find the men. They had said themselves that they were the Pasha’s men. They had spoken of ‘our’ Pasha and had even given his name. It was no surprise: Ali Maher, whom he had already been to see. And who had said that he had no connection with Denderah. While all the time he had an estate here.

  Clearly, what he would have to do now was to go to the estate. He would take the clerk with him to identify the men. Then he would arrest the men, bring them back to Denderah and then get on the next train to Cairo. It was all straightforward.

  Except …

  Except that nothing in Egypt was quite straightforward. How, for instance, was he going to get to the estate? It was only a few miles out of Denderah, but how was he going to cross those few miles? In Cairo (ah, Cairo!) it would have been simple. He would have hopped on the train or taken a cab. A horse-drawn cab, admittedly, but there would have been no difficulty in finding one. Just outside his office there was a row of them.

  Here, however, in benighted Upper Egypt there weren’t any. Nor any trains, either. So what was he to do? Walk? Seven miles across the desert? No, thank you! Horse, then? There would be horses here, although so far he had not seen any. But Mahmoud, every inch an urban Cairene, had never ridden a horse and wasn’t sure he knew quite how to manage one. They were a long way up. Not as high as a camel – but that was definitely out of the question! Discreet enquiries confirmed what he had feared: he would have to go by donkey.

  Fortunately, it was easy to hire one. In fact, he hired two, one for himself, and one for the clerk, who was possibly even less enthusiastic about the proposal than he was.

  ‘But, Effendi, my duties at the station …’

  ‘Find someone to stand in for you.’

  ‘But …’

  But in the end a substitute was found – the clerk’s brother. Jobs in Egypt were best kept in the family. The brother was buoyant about it, the clerk less so.

  Owen continued to sit by the well. It was about midway through the morning that a boy who introduced himself as Selim came up to him. He was holding a scarf in his hands.

  ‘This was Soraya’s,’ he said simply.

  He had found it, he said, out beyond the doum trees, beyond the temple, towards the river. There were other things there, too. He had left them there that Owen might see them.

  ‘Let us go, then,’ said Owen.

  The things were lying on the sand, apparently thrown out casually, as if the box had simply been tipped out; as if the box was what was wanted and the contents of no more importance than the girl who had owned them. They were humble things – a shawl, slippers, a cotton dress. But the shawl and the dress had been lovingly embroidered. Even the beads on the slippers had been carefully sewn on. He looked at them carefully. They were glass beads; not trocchee shells.

  The boy was still holding the scarf. ‘This I gave to Soraya,’ he said quietly.

  ‘You gave it to her? As a present?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘Was there an understanding between you?’

  The boy hesitated. ‘An understanding only. And no one knew. There could not be an agreement. We were too young. And her father, we knew, would not have it. He wanted someone who was older and in a position to give more. But she said she would wait.’

  ‘So you were surprised when you learned that she had not waited?’

  ‘I could not believe it! To do it without a word! But then her father told me she had taken her bride box with her and I saw that it was so. And I went off by myself into the desert and said that she was faithless. But, Effendi …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I d
o not believe that. I have gone over it in my mind again and again, and still I do not believe it. It was a trick, a trick of her greedy father. But, Effendi, even if what he had said was true, and she had gone to another, I would not have minded as much as I do this. That she should have gone and not just from me but from … life …’

  The tears were streaming down his face.

  ‘Effendi, if ever I find out who did this terrible thing, I will kill him!’

  The women had finished, for the moment, their filling of buckets and the little square of the town had reverted to its normal doze. In the doum palms the doves, too, had subsided. Only a steady gurgling, almost a purr, emerged from their throats.

  The omda came out of one of the houses, followed by a group of men. The men scattered, but not so far that they could not watch proceedings, leaving the omda alone to come across to Owen.

  ‘Effendi …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We have spoken with Mustapha.’

  ‘Good!’

  ‘He is willing to confess all.’

  ‘You have done well.’

  ‘It is not so much our doing but his wife’s. She could not sleep, she said, for thinking about the consequences of his foolishness. And to persist with it! There was no standing out against the mighty, she insisted. The police, especially around here, are nothing – but the Khedive is another matter. In the end he will have what he wills, and he has strong arms. Not for nothing does the Mamur Zapt come down to Denderah. His eye is on all things, even on what we do with our daughters. It is useless to try to deceive him. Or to deny him. Either you answer his questions here, she told him, or you answer them in jail.’

  ‘Those are words of wisdom,’ said Owen.

  ‘Mustapha did not think so at first. He said: “I shall not answer even though they put me in jail.” And his wife said: “Not at first, perhaps; but as the years go by? I don’t want to see you rot in jail while I wait outside the door. You have done wrong. Admit it, and take your punishment. And then it will be all over and done with and we can get on with our lives again.”

  ‘And we told him,’ said the omda, ‘that what she said was wisdom. But still he wouldn’t have it. “Must I suffer, just for daughters?” he said.