The merchants found him officious, but they were divided as to the best way to deal with him. A minority were for clubbing together to manufacture some complaint against him from which he would be unlikely to recover; but the majority shrugged their shoulders and counselled patience. The kadi, some suggested, was merely establishing his price. Will not an ambitious carpet dealer wax lyrical over the colours and qualities and rarity of his carpet, as a prelude to negotiation? Will not a young wrestler hurl all his strength into the contest, while the older man uses no more than he actually needs to use? The time would come, they argued, when the kadi would start to crack.
The action brigade claimed that this man was different. The realists said he was human. And the subtlest minds of all quietly observed that the kadi had two daughters. The eldest, approaching the marrying age, was reputed to be very beautiful.
The kadi’s fall, when it finally came, was silent and absolute. The rumour of his daughter’s beauty was perfectly true; she was also meek, pious, obedient and skilful. It was these very qualities that caused the kadi such agony of mind, as he tried to choose a husband for her. He loved his daughter, and wanted the best for her; and it was because she was so good that he became so picky. It was because he was so picky that he eventually settled on a renowned teacher at the central medrese, a bachelor from an excellent wealthy family.
The kadi’s fortune was by no means equal to providing his daughter with the handsome dowry and memorable wedding festivities that the groom’s family customarily provided for their own daughters. They didn’t mind, of course; but it tormented the kadi. The cause of the torment was divined by the matchmaker, a shrewd old lady who chewed betel and wore a gold bangle for every union she had successfully negotiated: she tin—kled like a fountain when she moved. And she moved a lot: that is to say, she visited almost every house in the district on a fairly regular basis, and through one of these visits the Kerkoporta merchants learned of the kadi’s dilemma.
The affair was handled with delicacy and tact.
For fixing up a splendid wedding, and clubbing together to provide the girl with a stylish dowry, the merchants asked the kadi for nothing in return. Few markets were as well served as the Kerkoporta by its kadi, who had brought such order and regularity and honesty into the business that even a foreigner, as was widely known, could make purchases there in perfect confidence. Hardly anyone need even know that the dowry and the feast came as a private act of tribute from the market to the judge.
Nothing was said. No deals were struck, perish the thought. The kadi continued to do his job with rigour, as before. He wasn’t even particularly grateful.
He was simply weary. Being honest was tiring, but it wasn’t as exhausting as carrying on with what he knew: that he had connived with the merchants he was deputed to regulate.
He continued to sit in the market house, hearing cases, investigating abuses, frowning at supplicants and keeping his own counsel. But he no longer punished transgressions with such severity. He no longer really cared whether the merchants cheated their customers or not. If he found gold in his purse, or a freshly slaughtered sheep delivered to his door, it roused neither gratitude nor indignation.
He had another daughter, after all.
[ 100 ]
The donkeys drummed on the cobbles with their little hooves. The two- wheeled carts jounced and swayed behind them, with a noise like sliding pebbles. The thin beams of lamplight careered around the blank walls.
Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen.
Murad Eslek raised a hand. The night porter gave a nod and let the barrier swing gently back into the wooden block on the other side of the gate, closing the road.
Eslek called out a brief thanks, and followed his carts into the square.
Sixty or seventy donkey carts jostled through the narrow openings, arguing their passage with a dozen or so much bigger mule carts, a flock of bleating sheep, and vendors still arriving. Space was constricted by the empty stalls Eslek and his men had been putting up over the last couple of hours, each one topped by a lantern. Wagon eight, Eslek noticed, had overshot its stalclass="underline" no use trying to back up, it would have to be led round again for a second try, when the others were out of the way. One of the stallholders, wrapped in a horse blanket tied on with string, was demanding to know where his delivery was: cart five had got swept away by an eruption of mule carts coming up from the city. Eslek could just about make it out, with its high stack of poultry cages swaying dangerously in the distance. But for the most part everything was in place.
He began to help unload the leading cart. Baskets of aubergines, jute bags of potatoes, bushels of spinach thumped onto the stall. When it was almost done, Eslek wheeled back and began the same routine with the cart behind. The trick was to finish unloading simultaneously, keep the train together, and move out in order. Otherwise it was all back and forth, and no rest till sun-up.
He darted across the square to the poultry cart. Just as he feared, it had got wedged in behind a mule cart loaded with sacks of rice and no one was paying any attention to the driver’s shouts. Eslek grabbed the mule’s halter and waved his arm at the driver standing in the cart, swinging the heavy sacks into the arms of a man on the ground.
“Hey! Hey! Hold it!”
The driver shot him a glance and turned to pick up another sack. Eslek drove the mule’s halter back: the mule tried to lift its head but decided to take a step backwards instead. The cart jolted and the driver, caught off balance, staggered back with a sack in his arms and sat down heavily.
The stallholder grinned and scratched his head. The driver leaped from his cart in a fury.
“What in the name of God—oh, it’s you, is it?”
“Come on, Genghis, get this rattletrap backed off half a mo, we’re stuck. Here, pull her up.” He gestured to the donkey cart driver, who was sitting on the cart board with his long driving stick poised and ready. The rice carter backed his mule cart, the donkey driver whacked the dust from the donkey’s flanks, and the little beast trotted forward.
“Cheers!” Eslek waved, then jogged alongside his cart with a hand on the board. “Second time this week, Abdul. You’re holding us all up.”
He brought the cart to the back of his own train, told the driver to grab a crate and with the stallholder’s help they unloaded, dodging up and down the line. Most of the stallholders were already arranging their stock; the scent of charcoal hung in the air as the street-food vendors lit their fires. Eslek felt hungry, but he still had to clear the carts out; it was another hour before he saw them all safely through the gate, where he paid off the drivers.
“Abdul,” he said. “Just keep your eyes open, understand? Those mule men look tough, but they can’t touch you. Not if you don’t give them a chance. Just stick to the tail of the man in front, keep your eyes straight. They’re all bluster.”
He walked back to the market. Now and then he had to flatten himself against the wall to allow other donkey carts to clatter by, but by the time he reached the square the first hubbub of the night had subsided. The vendors were busy with their arrangements of fruit and vegetables, vying against each other by building pyramids, amphitheatres and acropolises of okra, aubergines and waxy yellow potatoes, or of dates and apricots, in blocks and bands and fancy patterns of colour. Others, who had lit their braziers, were waiting for the coals to develop their white skin of ash, and using the time to nick chestnuts with a knife, or to load a thick skewer with slices of mutton. Soon, Eslek thought with a pang of hunger and anticipation, the meatballs would be simmering, the fish frying, the game and poultry roasting on the spits.