Iris and Ruby by Rosie Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

cover-up.
    His nod was barely perceptible.
    ‘If you are ready, Miss?’
    They went out through the blue-painted door and the sun’s heat struck the top of Ruby’s head. She took the few steps to the corner and looked up at an ancient crenellated wall, a cluster of smaller domes surrounding the large one and the three slender towers.
    ‘What is this place?’ she called to Mamdooh who was making stately progress in the other direction.
    ‘It is the mosque of al-Azhar. We are going this way, please.’
    ‘It’s very old.’
    ‘Cairo is a place of history.’ The way he said it told Ruby that he was proud of his native city and his reverence made her want to know more of it. She quickened her pace to catch him up again, and they swung down a narrow street and out into a much broader, almost Western-looking one. Out here there was a roar of traffic and hooting and tinny amplified music, and they were caught in a slow tide of people before Mamdooh ducked down into a tiled modern subway not much different from the one beneath Oxford Circus. When they surfaced again Ruby blinked.
    Mamdooh beckoned her. ‘Khan al-Khalili bazaar. Follow close to me, it is easy to be lost here.’
    He was right. It would be the easiest thing in the world to lose yourself in this maze of tiny alleys leading away from the almost-familiarity of the main street. There were canvas awnings looped overhead, and in their welcome shade the brightness of the crammed-together shops and stalls was dazzling. The merchandise was piled up and hung in tiers so it seemed to drip stalactites of hectic colour. One shop was crammed with interesting-looking brass and ceramic hookahs, another niche was festooned with belly dancers’ costumes gaudy with nylon fringing and glass beads. Another little recess was shelved from top to bottom with hundreds of glass jars containing oils in all the shades of precious stones. Next door open-mouthed hessian sacks spilled ochre- and saffron- and pearl-coloured grains.
    The footpaths between the stalls were choked with people and wooden carts and porters with boxes piled on their heads. There were men in Western clothes, and others in galabiyeh and tarboosh like Mamdooh. There were women robed in black from head to toe, others in trousers and sturdy blouses with just a scarf wound over their hair. Ruby was startled and slightly affronted to see that there were numbers of Western tourists, pink-faced and too tall, uncertain in response to the urgent demands of the stallholders. In Iris’s secluded house she had felt as if they were the only two of their kind in the whole of Cairo.
    The shopkeepers competed for Ruby’s attention as she went by.
    ‘Lady, look-see. Just looking, no charge. Very good prices.’
    Urchins plucked at her shirt, holding up novelty lighters and boxes of tissues and bottles of water. Even in the shade it was hot, and the air felt saturated with moisture. Her shirt was soon sticking to her back and thick hanks of hair plastered themselves to her forehead and the nape of her neck. There was a continuous ssss-ssss of warning at her back asporters and carters hauled and pushed their loads into the depths of the bazaar.
    She followed Mamdooh’s bobbing tarboosh, realising that if she lost sight of him she had no idea which way to turn. A memory came back to her of being a small child, shopping with Lesley in a department store. She had lost herself in a forest of legs and bulging bags, and she fought her way between them, stumbling forward and then back again, a wail of panic and outrage forming in her throat. Big faces had bloomed over her head, and hands reached out to catch her as she screamed and screamed. It could only have been a minute or two before Lesley found her, but it had seemed like hours. She resisted the impulse now to catch and hold tight onto Mamdooh’s white skirts.
    An even smaller capillary led away from the alley of shops, this one enclosed by rickety houses with overhanging upper