The Night of the Dog Read Online Free PDF

attendant came round with coffee and then, noting Miss Postlethwaite, returned with almond cakes.
    “We should eat them,” said Owen, uneasily aware of the hour and thinking about Mr. Postlethwaite back in the hotel. “It is wrong to refuse hospitality.”
    “I would not dream of doing so,” said Jane Postlethwaite, and tucked in with relish. “It is not, of course, the kind of religious occasion that I am used to but it was most interesting.”
    Owen was relieved. It was some time since he had been to a Zikr gathering and he had forgotten what strong meat it was.
    A Zikr walked past him. Owen recognized him as the one who had put the blazing thorn bush inside his gown. He was dressed now only in a loin-cloth—the gown had burnt. Owen looked at him closely. There were no traces on his skin either of burns or of thorn scratch marks. He looked over to where some of the other Zikr were standing. These were ones who had stabbed themselves with spears and swords and one or two of them still had knives sticking in them. They looked very, very tired but not hurt. There was a thin trickle of blood coming from some of the wounds. It was nothing like the mutilations, however, which some of the sects practised. These were often combined with self-flagellation and then there was blood everywhere. In the case of the Zikr the intention was not to humiliate but to exalt, to demonstrate the imperviousness of the body when it is caught up in Allah’s holy rapture.
    Gradually all the Zikr who had collapsed to the ground rose to their feet. Except one, who as the minutes went by remained still.

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CHAPTER 3
    « ^ »
    Paul was cross.
    “I said show her the sights,” he complained. “I didn’t mean that sort of sight.”
    “How was I to know it would end like that?”
    “Well, Christ, if they’re always sticking knives in themselves, one day it was bound to happen. Anyway, is that the sort of thing you take a girl to? People sticking knives in themselves? Jesus, Gareth, you’ve got funny ideas of entertainment. You were out on that goddamn Frontier a bit too long.”
    “She wanted to go,” Owen protested.
    “She didn’t know what the hell she wanted. You should have had more sense. Couldn’t you have taken her to a mosque or something? She’s religious, isn’t she?”
    “She wanted to see a bit of Cairo life.”
    “Cairo life, yes, but not Cairo death. Honestly, Gareth, I’m disappointed in you. Where the hell’s your judgement?”
    Garvin was even crosser.
    “The Consul-General has been on to me,” he said, “personally. He wants to know, and I want to know too, what the bloody hell you were doing. You’re not some wet-behind-the-ears young subaltern fresh out from England without a bloody idea in his head. You’re the Mamur Zapt and ought to have some bloody political savvy.”
    “She wanted to see Cairo—”
    “Then show her Cairo. Show her the bloody Pyramids or something. Take her down the Musky and let her buy something. Take her to the bazaars. Take her to the Market of the Afternoon. Take her to the bloody Citadel. But don’t bloody take her somewhere where she’s going to see somebody get his throat cut.”
    “He didn’t actually—”
    Garvin paused in his tirade. “Yes,” he said, in quite a different voice, “that was a bit odd, wasn’t it? They usually know what they’re doing. However”—his voice resumed its previous note—“the one thing you’re supposed to be doing is handling this pair with kid gloves. Taking this girl to a Zikr gathering is not that.”
    He glared at Owen, defying him to defy him. Owen had enough political sense at least not to do that.
    “And that’s another thing,” said Garvin. “You were supposed to be showing them both around. Both. Not just the girl. This is not a personal Sports Afternoon for you, Owen, it’s bloody work. This man is important. With the new Government in England, these damned MPs are breathing down our necks. They’re on our backs