But, still, Professor Samuel tied a bandage around his head and a mattress was put out for him in the corridor (for the house had never been so full). He lay on his mattress all through the next day. The day after that everybody could see there was nothing wrong with him any more, so Abu Fahl told him to go out to work with the others. Mast Ram didn’t move. They left him alone that day, and the next day everybody forgot about him because that was the day Kulfi came home crying.
At the time Kulfi used to cook in a rich Ghaziri’s house. The pay was good, the work simple, and the whole house was air-conditioned. It was a small family and they liked Kulfi, so she was happy there and everybody envied her. But there was a daughter in the family and that was where the trouble started, for she was fat and very ugly. She couldn’t keep her hands away from ghee and butter, and so on some days her face was covered with so many bursting pimples it could have been taken for a pot of boiling water. Her parents had done everything they could to marry her off, but nothing worked. Then one day they heard of a boy. His family was poor, but he’d worked hard, got a scholarship, gone to America and come back with a suitcase-ful of degrees. Now he wanted to go into business and he needed capital. Of that the girl’s father had plenty. So they came to an understanding, and it was decided that the boy would come to their house to meet the girl.
There was turmoil in the house: great preparations. The girl’s mother, half-crazy with worry, ran about roasting chickens, boiling legs of lamb, pouring buckets of saffron into every pot of rice. The father went to the Swiss shop in Hurreyya and bought so many sweets and cakes they had to close down for the whole day. All Kulfi had to do was cook a couple of vegetables and heat the food.
It looked very simple. The car arrived. The boy got out, his mother got out, and there were little cries of joy in the house for they couldn’t have wished for nicer people. Then they saw his grandmother, and suddenly everyone was nervous, for despite her burqa they could see that she was as thin as a whip, with fangs and a moustache.
All went well for an hour or so: though the grandmother’s voice shrilled through the house, the boy and the girl talked prettily to each other through her mother. When it was evening the men said their prayers and afterwards they asked for dinner.
All this while the grandmother had been peering suspiciously at all the signs of wealth around her. When the talk of dinner came up, she said: So you have someone to cook for you?
The girl’s mother, wanting to impress her, said: Oh, yes. An Indian woman.
At that the grandmother rose and said to the boy: Come on, let’s go. (Later they found out that she’d been against the marriage from the start — didn’t want another woman in the house.)
His mother was furious. Why? she said. Why now? Before dinner and everything? Think of your indigestion.
No, we’re going, said the grandmother. I’m not going to eat food cooked by an Indian. Don’t you remember how your uncle told us that these Indian women spit into the food because they like the flavour?
Commotion. The girl’s mother pleaded with her, told her it wasn’t true, Kulfi was a good clean girl who never spat into the food or anything like that, but the grandmother wouldn’t budge. Not a bit.
Almost in tears now, the girl’s mother pleaded with them and said: Come into the kitchen and right in front of you I’ll ask Kulfi whether she spits into the food.
The boy frowned at his grandmother (he was very eager to get his capital), so she had to agree. They all went to the kitchen — the grandmother, the boy, the girl, almost everyone in the house — and crowded around to watch.
At that time Kulfi knew very little Arabic. She knew simple things like ‘too hot’ and ‘more salt’, but little else. The girl’s mother remembered this with foreboding once she was in the kitchen but it was already too late.
She gestured to Kulfi to watch and leant over a pot and made little spitting noises. Then she screwed up her face and gestured as though to say: Do you do this?
Kulfi was already very nervous. She saw the woman bending over the pot, spitting and gesturing, so she thought to herself, Why, here’s something new — and as helpfully as she could she made a sign to the woman to wait. For a moment she blew and puffed, and when at last she had worked up a good mouthful of spit she bent over the pot and spat right into it. Then she looked up and smiled at the woman. There, she thought, you can’t do better than that and I’m not going to eat it anyway.
Pandemonium. Kulfi was out on the street in a minute. It was a pity, for the family was a nice one. But in the end the girl’s mother had to promise that she would never again have an Indian in the house, before the marriage could go ahead.
But Kulfi was without a job, and what with hearing the story over and over again nobody noticed Mast Ram. Then one day Abu Fahl remembered him and took him out with the others to teach him how to paint houses. It was the simplest job in the world, even for someone who was just a boy like Mast Ram. But he wouldn’t work. He’d sit by himself, smoke cigarettes and do nothing, nothing at all. Far from doing any painting, he wouldn’t even scrape the floor afterwards to take off the stains.
One day Abu Fahl said: Enough. If he won’t work, he’ll have to leave. So they tied his things together and threw them out of the house. But Mast Ram wouldn’t go. He sat in a corner and held on to the bars in the window, while his eyes ran around the room like spiders. He made Abu Fahl mad with anger. He got his crowbar, stood with his legs apart, towering over Mast Ram, and raised it above his head to break his skull again, where the crack still showed.
When Mast Ram saw Abu Fahl, with his bull’s shoulders, standing over him, holding the crowbar with both hands and glaring with his one, red eye, fear began to steam off his skin. For once his eyes were still. He cowered against the wall and began to weep.
It was Frowning Abusa who stopped Abu Fahl. Wait, he said. Maybe he’ll be able to do some other kind of job.
At that time Abusa was working in a rich sheikh’s house as a gardener. The sheikh was one of the brave ones who had bought land on the outskirts of the town. He had built himself a palace there but he could do nothing about the land, which stayed desert, despite all his efforts.
Now, Abusa had one great gift: all living things grew under his fingers as though to please him alone. In his village ever since he started working on his father’s land, their cotton grew longer and heavier than anybody else’s. In years when the whole village’s fields lay devastated by worms their crops threw off insects at will as though they found strength in Abusa’s very presence. Within a month of taking the job with the sheikh he made grass push through the sand. The sheikh, in his gratitude, doubled Abusa’s wage within the year and soon Abusa was earning a lot of money. Abusa knew the sheikh would listen to whatever he said, so no one doubted he would find Mast Ram a job there.
Abusa never talked about his work (or much else), so no one knew how Mast Ram was faring in his new job. No one gave it much thought, either, then suddenly some odd things began to happen. First, four men from one of the construction gangs in the Ras died, when a high-tension cable fell right on them. They died in agony, thrashing about on the ground. That was the first time such a thing had happened. Then one of Hajj Fahmy’s sons drove his truck right off the embankment at a hundred kilometres an hour. It was impossible to explain, for he had driven along that road for years. By the time they found him they couldn’t pick his body out of the wreckage. Soon after, fever hit the first few shacks on the outskirts of the Ras.