The Bride Box by Michael Pearce Page A

‘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.
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜The body needs seeing to, Effendi,’ she said.
    It was a rule that the body should be buried the day the person died.
    â€˜That cannot be in this case,’ said Mahmoud. ‘The body is in Cairo. It is being seen to.’
    â€˜It should be seen to by those that knew her,’ said the woman.
    â€˜That cannot be.’
    The woman stood for a while, then accepted it. ‘And what of Leila?’ she asked.
    â€˜Leila is in Cairo, too,’ said Owen. ‘She is well and in safe hands.’
    â€˜God be praised!’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Is it true, Effendi, what you said about Leila?’ one of them asked quietly.
    â€˜It is true, yes.’
    â€˜
Inshallah!
God be praised!’
    â€˜How did it come about that she was allowed to go? What sort of village is this?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜And Soraya? The same?’
    â€˜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 …’
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜And then sold her to the slavers?’
    â€˜Perhaps. But …’
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜I thought the slavers had gone from Egypt,’ Mahmoud said. ‘How comes it that they are here?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜They should be,’ said Mahmoud. ‘How comes it that they are not?’
    â€˜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