The Weeping Desert (2 page)

John did not attempt to pass the yellow Cadillac, which had suddenly dropped to a cruising speed. The hawk-faced driver, handsome and faintly sinister with his small black beard, spotless white headcloth and black and silver
agal
,
was casually lighting a cheroot, one hand lightly on the wheel, his eyes swiftly looking at a pair of strolling European women with their brazenly bare arms and legs.

The cars were approaching the main shopping streets of Oman Said, thronged with taxis, bicycles, pedestrians, wandering cows, donkeys and goats. The open-fronted shops, built hurriedly of crude cement blocks, spilled their goods out onto the sidewalks—kettles, carpets, mattresses, silks, sandals, tins of sardines, camel saddles, Kashmir trays and dishes, Indian brassware, spices, Japanese cameras.

The sidewalks were a blur of humanity: Arabs and immigrant workers—Pakistanis and Persians clad in long dirty shirts and European jackets; a drift of Yemenis; dhoticlad Indians and the occasional sheikh with spotless, flowing robes and black cloak; beggars and squatters; a few English and Dutch, their women always in pairs; and the rare Arab woman, a shapeless bundle in her enveloping black cloak, billowing like a black bird, the black leather mask completely concealing all but her eyes. Sometimes a wisp of coloured chiffon trailed in the dust beneath the hem of her black cloak, or perhaps another shred of fabric was twisted between her henna’d and ringed fingers. They hurried on their errands, for the new wealth and bustle of Oman Said was confusing and bewildering to the women.

John found a place to park his jeep outside the new building of the British Bank of the Middle East. It had a clean, modern, reassuring look about it, but Shuqrat building methods were so amateur and haphazard that it would not be long before the paint peeled, the wood warped, the window catches ceased to function and the air-conditioners fell off their ledges.

Either side of the bank were the two food shops most patronised by the European community, Hassan’s Cold Store and Ali bin Ali’s. The shops held identical stocks of American and British tinned goods, frozen goods imported from Britain and a small quantity of fresh salad stuff which was flown in twice a week from Beirut in an old Dakota.

There was no sense of competition between the two shops. They both charged the same exorbitant prices while supplying the staid, unchanging British preference for cornflakes, baked beans and sausages. The managements had no business sense. They never re-ordered before stocks were completely exhausted; thus it was quite normal for the British, population to find themselves without gravy powder or marmalade for months at an end.

John made a brief tour of the Cold Store, hoping that perhaps something new had been imported which might vary the mess menus. He looked in the meat cabinet, where huge hulks of frozen meat, encased in ice, were quite unrecognisable. He picked up a couple of tins of American fried onion rings, which were a good party snack. He by-passed the potato crisps; they would taste like cardboard. A couple of vacuum-sealed tins of cashew nuts should still be fresh…and half a dozen little tins of cocktail sausages.

Before he knew it, John had spent well over seven pounds on practically nothing. Fortunately, in rupees it sounded less, and he left the Cold Store unperturbed by the high cost of living.

“So that’s what you are going to feed us with at your farewell party,” said a pleasant, feminine voice. “Hardly inspiring. If I didn’t consider the company worth it, I don’t think I’d even bother to come.”

“Cheeky,” said John, grinning over the top of his armful of tins. “You know you’d give your right hand rather than miss a mess party. They are the most swinging parties in Shuqrat.”

“The noisiest, the latest and the rowdiest, I should say,” said Sheila O’Donaghue, falling into step with John. “‘The bachelors’ mess at Walhid el Said is hardly the top of this tight little social circle.”

“Madam, you’re speaking of the beer stains I love,” said John, tipping the tins into the back of the jeep. He moved back quickly, carefully avoiding the hot metal.

The afternoon was still humid but, somehow, Sheila managed to look cool and unflustered in her cotton frock and open-toed sandals. Her long fair hair was scraped up into an absurd knot on the top of her head, and the small tendrils at her neck and ears were corkscrews of spun gold. She had tanned slowly and carefully because of her fine complexion, and the result was an even honey-brown which made her skin look like velvet.

John looked down at the young nurse, and for the first time felt a momentary pang that he was leaving Shuqrat next week.

Sheila smiled back at him. “I shall miss you,” she said in her completely honest way.

“You won’t have time to,” said John quickly. “The boys are practically queueing up to take you out while I’m on leave.”

Sheila heard the brief second of panic in John’s voice, and sighed inwardly. “Sounds as if I shall have a whale of a time,” she said lightly. “Well, see you tonight, John,” and she turned to walk to her Mini Traveller, which was parked further along the sea front.

John knew that he had disappointed her, again. But he could not help it. He felt nothing for Sheila except a pleasant and comfortable affection. He was twenty-six. There was the world to see yet, and he wanted to travel light. He did not want to be encumbered with any emotional ties or responsibilities.

“Like to come to the jeweller’s with me,” he called out, hoping to make amends. “I’m picking up a necklace for my mother. I need feminine support.”

“You’re big enough to support yourself,” said Sheila, getting into her car. “Besides, I don’t want to go near the
souk
today. I heard there was trouble this morning. Two men were arrested—agitators from Cairo banging the Arab nationalist drum, I expect. Anyway, I’m keeping clear. I see the results of these riots too often up at the hospital. Do you have to get your mother’s necklace today? Couldn’t it wait?”

John shook his head. “I might forget. Besides I said I would be in today.”

“Today, tomorrow—it’s all the same to them.”

“I said today.”

Sheila leaned out of her car window. “I’m passing the Pakistani baker on my way back to the hospital. Would you like me to call in and see if he has any curry puffs?”

“Thanks,” said John. “You’re a dear.”

You mean I’m a fool, thought Sheila, driving away. Why hadn’t she the sense to leave things alone? John was not interested in her, beyond as a pretty and available companion to take to parties and to crew for him at the sailing club races. That she could also sew on a button and administer to a headache made her doubly welcome at the bachelors’ mess.

Sheila looked back in her driving-mirror. John was still standing by the sea front, such a very tall English-looking man with his thatch of light brown, sun-streaked hair, and his far-away vivid blue eyes that deepened to grey as the sun went down. It was strange how the colour changed in that unfathomable way, as if when evening party-time came he found it necessary to pull a mask over his eyes.

She watched him turn in the direction of the
souk
,
then stop and go back to his jeep as if to lock away his purchases before leaving the vehicle. It was not wise to leave anything loose in a car.

He crossed again dodging a haughty, plodding camel and an Arab riding a thin donkey. The Arab was holding aloft a big black golf umbrella, souvenir of some audience with a sheikh no doubt. But it did not shade the weary donkey, stumbling along, head down.

The
souk
was a maze of narrow lanes crowded with tiny, open shops that fronted dark, mysterious caverns filled with the scent of musk and spices, and incense. There was barely room for two people to pass along the narrow central pathways. Some of the shops seemed to be hewn out of rock, with steep, worn stone steps climbing up into the entrance. The merchants sat on these steps, smoking and talking to their neighbours and inviting custom.

The roof was a hodge-podge of straw mats and sheets of corrugated iron, and anything else that could be found to fill in a hole. But still shafts of sunlight stabbed the cool, dark air of the bustling lanes.

John knew his way through part of the
souk
.
But it was easy to get lost. The lanes intersected so frequently and the shops all looked so much alike that very few Europeans went further into the market than they had to.

The shop that John wanted was in the goldsmiths’ lane, where every shop was a jeweller’s and masked Arab women argued in shrill voices over the price of some rings or gold bangles.

John recognised the shop by the glowing red Persian carpet on the stone floor and the swinging brass incense lamp hanging in the doorway. He ducked down to enter.

The jeweller’s wares were kept locked away. Only a few curved Arabic daggers and Khanjar knives in silver and oryxhorn were on display, and some cheaper items in coral and mother-of-pearl. The fat, placid jeweller went deeper into his cavern’s depths to fetch the necklace. He unfolded a small piece of black velvet on the floor and then, with great showmanship, trickled the necklace out of his podgy hand into a perfect circle on the velvet.

It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Delicate gold links supporting a seven-pointed star in the centre. Embedded in the star was an ancient Arabian coin; not rare, but ancient enough to be an excellent tourist attraction, and the jeweller made a good business of putting these coins into different settings.

“Seven-pointed star lucky Arabic symbol,” said the jeweller in his laboured English.

“Good,” said John, not wanting to spoil the sales talk.

“OK? You take?”

The price had been arranged earlier, so John had nothing more disagreeable to do than to pay up. The money passed with many blessings to Allah and bows and gold-filled smiles and nods.

The jeweller wrapped the necklace first in some crudely torn tissue paper, and then in a scruffy piece of second-hand brown wrapping paper.

“Careful,” said the jeweller. He tapped his sides where his pockets would have been if he had pockets, and made a warning expression.

John thanked him, ducked down under the hanging lamp and went out into the gloom of the
souk
.
Now he had to buy Brett’s sandals, then he could go home and get showered and changed. There was one particular shop where one had a better chance of getting a right and a left foot of the same size. Now which way was it?

He wandered vaguely in the direction of the clothes alleys and came out unexpectedly into the main street again, where the noise of traffic and animals and pedestrians assailed his ears from all sides.

Then John realised that it was exceptionally noisy because of some loud arguing coming from a group of sallow, lighter-skinned Arabs who were pushing and shoving people out of the way. They had rifles slung over their shoulders, and daggers tucked in their belts. John thought it very unwise for anyone to argue with them.

Another, sharper-faced Arab, with eyes like black beads, began to talk to the crowd, his voice becoming louder and excited, his arms making dramatic sweeps. The crowd grew: loitering children, a few hopeful beggars, tall ragged Bedouins from the hinterland in their red-check headcloths and sandals made from old tyres, and immigrant labourers idling a few more hours away.

John knew enough Arabic to realise that the agitator was voicing anti-British propaganda, inciting the people of Shuqrat to throw out the British and join the Arab nationalists. John stepped back into the shadows of the
souk
entrance, not wanting to ask for trouble, hoping that he might slip away unobserved.

But that slight movement was enough to draw attention to himself, or perhaps the sun suddenly caught the fair streaks in his hair. The next moment, the agitator was pointing at John accusingly with a grimy-nailed finger, loading the guilt of unspeakable horrors on to John’s shoulders.

There was a nasty murmur from the crowd, and John decided this was not the time to call for an interpreter, or the protection of the flag-waving political agent. He retreated.

There was nowhere to go except straight back into the
souk
.
It was not easy to run. The strolling shoppers in the
souk
bumped and jostled him as he tried to dodge the general tide of people. A clamour of excited Arab voices followed him as he unsuccessfully tried to shake off his pursuers.

To his advantage, he was young and healthy with a long stride, and he was unhampered by clinging robes and the need to stop and tell everyone what was happening.

He went further into the
souk
,
into narrow little lanes which had not seen the sun for years, where the shops were no more than rabbit holes selling a few dried chillies or some grubby rice on a mat:

“Salaam,
m’sser.
Salaam.”
The voice came from a bundle of old rags that John nearly fell over in the gloom. It was impossible to tell whether the beggar was man, woman or child.

John dropped a handful of small coins as he ran. Over his shoulder he saw the bundle of rags become agile enough to scratch in the dust for the tiny wafer-thin discs. Normally one did not give to beggars, for to do this on the open streets was to invite every sister, cousin and aunt of the fortunate one to follow you all day with their dismal wailing.

Suddenly John came out of the
souk
into an alleyway. It was a part of the town he had never seen before and it seemed strangely quiet. A stray goat, nibbling a brown paper bag, looked at him without interest. On either side of the alley were high, bleak walls; one was obviously quite old and built of uneven stones, but the other was modern and concrete-faced, and embedded in the concrete were small pieces of granite grit which
glinted
in the late afternoon sunlight.