The Bride Box Read Online Free PDF

now. It’s had something in it since. Something which doesn’t smell too good.’
    â€˜What the hell do you think it can be?’ said Abdul, sniffing.
    â€˜I reckon a rat’s got in there,’ said Mustapha.
    â€˜Got in and stayed, by the smell of it!’
    â€˜A pretty big-sized rat, it must be.’
    â€˜We reckon it was a dog. It’s addressed to a Pasha, see. And we reckon it’s one of his prize dogs. Must be, for them to go to the trouble.’
    â€˜A dog!’ said Leila, bursting into tears. ‘In my sister’s box?’
    The men looked at each other uncomfortably.
    â€˜It’s not right, you know,’ said Abdul. ‘You shouldn’t do that to a girl’s bride box.’
    â€˜It’s special,’ said Mustapha. ‘It means a lot to her.’
    â€˜Do you know what I think?’ said Abdul. ‘I reckon the Pasha came along and said: “I need a box. That one will do.” So they just tipped everything out and put the dog inside.’
    â€˜They shouldn’t do that!’ said Leila, crying. ‘It’s my sister’s bride box!’
    â€˜No more they should!’ said Abdul. ‘These Pashas are bastards!’
    â€˜Think they can get away with anything!’ said Mustapha.
    â€˜Bastards!’ all four men agreed.
    â€˜But what about my sister’s things? They were beautiful things. She’d made them herself!’
    â€˜Yes, well, that’s how it is,’ said Abdul, with a sympathy surprising since this was only a girl.
    â€˜Don’t worry!’ said Mustapha. ‘The people in the village will have picked them up.’
    â€˜And gone off with them, I shouldn’t be surprised,’ said Hussein.
    â€˜If they have, her husband will get them back,’ said Abdul. ‘“Give them back or I’ll beat your head in,” he’ll say. And you’ll be surprised at the effect it will have.’
    â€˜They ought not to have done it,’ said Leila. ‘It’s my sister’s box!’
    When it was hot, really hot, for it was always hot in Cairo, they slept on the roof. They had fenced off a garden area with trellis work up which they had trained beans. Beans were grown for decoration as well as food in Egypt. On the roof they served as a dense, green screen, with occasional splashes of red from the flowers. Behind the screen they were invisible to the sleepers on neighbouring roofs, like them in search of air during the hot nights.
    The drawback was that you woke with the sun. Zeinab merely pulled the sheet over her head and carried on sleeping. But Owen was fully awake from the moment the first sun touched his face. He always was.
    This morning he got up and walked to the edge of the roof and looked out over the still, sleeping city to where the Nile curved round the houses and the hawks were already beginning to hover on the upward currents of air. Below him, in the little nearby gardens, the doves were beginning to gurgle in the trees. He always loved this moment of the day before the city woke up, when all was still and quiet and the air fresh, sometimes with dew.
    Sometimes, as now, it was even chilly. At least, you could imagine that, and people, English men especially, nostalgic for home, often liked to do that. In the evening you sometimes even lit a fire, which you never really needed to do, but it was nice to imagine it on a frosty morning in England and to stretch out your hands and feel the warmth. Of course, there was warmth all the time but this was a different warmth. He didn’t need that today, though. Already the heat was beginning to build up. Already, over the Nile, there were little heat shimmers.
    All the same, he pulled on his cotton dressing gown. In the pocket he felt something. He pulled it out. It was a little
trocchee
shell and it had been found clutched in the girl’s fingers when they had conducted the post-mortem.
    He had shown it