A Cold Touch of Ice. Michael Pearce

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СКАЧАТЬ mean, you do have cotton from time to time, don’t you? So there will be people who know. Perhaps they’ll have bought from you before.’

      ‘Well, I don’t know that I’d call them regular customers –’

      ‘But they know, don’t they? They know about the cotton. I was just wondering if any of them were particularly interested this time?’

      ‘Not as far as I know.’

      The Greek pinched his fingers again and winked.

      ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it could be of great help to me to know their names.’

      He pinched his fingers.

      ‘Well,’ said the Levantine, weakening. ‘All right.’

      ‘And anyone else,’ said the Greek, smiling encouragingly, ‘who shows an interest.’

      The Greek wandered out of the showroom, sauntered along the edge of the Market of the Afternoon, and then dived into one of the little streets beneath the Citadel. He came to rest in a little, dark, almost subterranean coffee house.

      Owen followed him in.

      ‘You’re going to have to buy that cotton if you’re not careful,’ he said.

      The Greek settled himself comfortably on the stone slab and sipped his coffee.

      ‘At the last moment,’ he said, ‘I shall feel the cotton and look disappointed. Then I shall ask him if he’s got any more coming in.’

      ‘They get cotton from both the north and south,’ said Owen. ‘The lot with the guns in comes from the south.’

      ‘I know,’ said the Greek. ‘Sennar. Then Assuan. A pity.’

      ‘Pity? Why?’

      The Greek looked slightly embarrassed. ‘I thought you might want to send me – I was hoping it would be Alexandria.’

      ‘Alexandria?’

      ‘I thought I might take Rosa. She’s been looking a bit peaky lately.’ The Greek looked down at his coffee. ‘It’s the baby, you know.’

      ‘Baby!’

      ‘Due in the summer. July.’

      ‘Baby!’

      Rosa was about fourteen. At least – Owen began to calculate, time passed more quickly than you thought – maybe she was a bit more than that now. Sixteen? Seventeen?

      ‘Congratulations! To both of you. Tell Rosa I’m delighted.’

      ‘Thanks. I will.’

      ‘July, you say?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And she’s looking a bit peaky?’

      ‘It’s the heat. She gets tired.’

      ‘So you thought a holiday would do her good?’

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘Seems a good idea to me. Take her with you … But, hey, you’re not going to Alexandria! The guns came up from Assuan!’

      ‘It just seemed a good idea … Two birds with one stone …’

      ‘But it’s not two birds with one stone! You’re not going to Alexandria. There’s no reason why you should go to Alexandria! Assuan, the guns came from Assuan!’

      ‘All right, all right.’

      ‘You can take a holiday after!’

      Baby! The shocks were raining in fast. First Mahmoud getting married, now Rosa having a baby. He would have to tell Zeinab.

      On second thoughts, perhaps he wouldn’t tell Zeinab.

       4

      The warehouse this morning was buzzing with activity. Strapping, bulging-armed porters were carrying things to and fro, the harassed warehouse foreman ran about chiding everybody, and the Signora herself, black-dressed, arms folded, stood firm at the centre of the maelstrom.

      Two carts were being loaded, one bound for the Ismailiya showrooms, the other for the premises near the Market of the Afternoon. Now that the Signora had taken over the management of the business, the auctions were beginning again.

      Among the goods being put on the Market of the Afternoon cart were the bales of cotton. Owen had decided that there was no need to hold them longer, now that the arms had been extracted. The arms themselves were piled in a corner, black and leaden, looking oddly at home among the bric-a-brac that surrounded them.

      The cart Owen had sent for them was arriving now. The two warehouse carts were occupying all the space in front of the warehouse doors and there was an altercation. The foreman hurried out.

      ‘Put it there!’ he said, pointing to just the other side of the carts. It would block the street entirely: but then, Cairo traffic was used to that. Not that the camel drivers, donkey men and carts would accept it lightly.

      ‘Can’t we put it closer?’ pleaded the policemen with the cart.

      ‘Oh, you poor things!’ said the porters. ‘Why don’t you get your wives to give you a hand? Come to that, why don’t you send them round anyway.’

      Affronted, one of the policemen, a giant of a man, jumped off, stalked into the warehouse and picked up a bundle of guns. They were heavier than he had thought and he had to hitch them up with his hip to get them into the cart.

      The porters laughed. One of them went across to the guns and picked up two bundles, one under each arm, and then put them up into the cart with ease.

      The big policeman went back into the warehouse, half bent to pick up the guns as the porter had done, considered, and then considered again.

      ‘Come on, you idle sods!’ he bellowed to his colleagues still on the cart. ‘Do I have to do all the work?’

      Reluctantly, the policemen fell to. The porters watched them and laughed.

      The big policeman walked across to his rival and patted him gently on the head.

      ‘There are more things to strength, little flower,’ he said, ‘than being able to pick up pianos.’

      ‘Come on, Selim,’ said Owen hastily. ‘Get on with it!’

      It did not, in fact, take the policemen very long, but even so, in the intense heat, by the time they had finished, they were running with sweat and glad to collapse into the shade beside the cart.

      By this time, of course, the street was totally jammed in both directions and there were angry shouts. Selim stood for a moment contemplating the furious, gesticulating СКАЧАТЬ