Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled Read Online Free PDF Page A

lifted both hands alarmingly from the wheel to shrug. “From many years back, you know? World War One.” Mercifully he returned his hands to the steering wheel. “The Ottomans very cruel; they hang patriots here. But now you see the gate and walls of Old City? I leave you at entrance to the souks, you walk straight—past shops—and there will be Citadel.”
    He stopped the car, rushed to open doors for them and they shook hands with him, liberally tipping him, before he rattled off again in his Studebaker. “That car,” said Farrell, watching him leave, “has to be held together by baling wire and prayers. But Carstairs was certainly right about people being friendly.”
    “Not everyone,” commented Mrs. Pollifax. “Don’t look now, but another car stopped behind Abdul, and there’s a man in dark glasses and a black suit getting out.”
    “Tiresome,” murmured Farrell. “If it’s us he’s interested in, we have …” He glanced at his watch. “We have a little less than two hours to lose him. The trick will be to lose
him
, but
not
our way back to the Citadel, because from the look of the map the Old City’s a real maze.”
    “We could sprinkle bread crumbs as we go,” said Mrs. Pollifax brightly. “Like Hansel and Gretel.”
    Farrell laughed. “If I remember
that
nursery tale the birds then ate all the crumbs, removing all possibility of their return. How’s your sense of direction?”
    “Only fair,” she admitted.
    “Well, mine’s pretty well honed. Let’s go.”
    “To be an authentic tourist I shall buy something,” she told him. “Didn’t it surprise you the amount of money Carstairs gave us?”
    Farrell said dryly, “I’m not sure gifts were what he had in mind. Bribes, more likely. Baksheesh and all that.”
    She didn’t question this, preferring not to, and in any case they were passing the ancient crumbling walls and entering old Damascus. They were also leaving behind the bright sunlight—it needed a moment for the eyes to adjust to the roofed passageways—but they exchanged sunshine for people, bright colors, the sound of shuffling feet on the cobbles,voices, and from somewhere there came music, a woman singing in Arabic, with guitars plucked and men chanting. “Wonderful,” breathed Mrs. Pollifax.
    “It would be
more
wonderful if we weren’t being followed,” growled Farrell.
    She glanced back and sighed. “He does cling, doesn’t he … if discreetly.”
    Ignoring him they gazed into stalls selling ice cream, tourist souvenirs, candy, and embroidered linens. Black-robed women passed them, and chattering schoolgirls in jeans and T-shirts, a man with a long white beard wearing a shabby djellaba, and everywhere merchants called out to them the pleasures of their merchandise.
    Mrs. Pollifax abruptly stopped. “I must take a picture of this.”
    “You brought a
camera?”
    She nodded, smiling. “For Cyrus. I promised,” and she snapped a picture of a counter piled high with tubs of dates, eggplants, figs, and cucumbers. The merchant beamed at her and called to her,
“ ‘Berrid ‘alâ kalbak!”
and she snapped a picture of him, too. Strolling on past several more stalls she stopped in midpassageway and put out a hand to halt Farrell, pointing. “That man sells clothes,” she said. “I want a robe.”
    The attentive man behind the counter smiled. “For women,
galabiyyas
 … very nice brocade, you like?”
    “Oh no, a quiet one.” She selected a richly woven black robe with embroidery, tried it on, and without bargaining paid his price. “Just in case I need to blend into the scenery,” she told Farrell in a low voice, and looking him over critically added, “A pity you no longer have a mustache, you’re tanned, enough to almost look a native.” Turning back to the merchant she said, “And that white headscarf, please?”
    “
Isharb
—kerchief,” she was told, and he showed her how it could be intricately wound around her head to fall in soft