O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [9]
“A Koran?” I asked him. He continued shaking the beans. “Yours?”
“Yours,” he said briefly, and followed it with a flow of Arabic that Holmes translated. “ ‘Start with the knowledge of God’s Book and the duties of your religion, then study the Arabic language, to give you purity of speech.’ ”
“Is that from the Koran?”
“Ibn Khaldûn,” Mahmoud said. The name was familiar, that of an early Arabic historian whose work I had not read.
“Well, thank you. I will read this with care.”
Mahmoud reached for the coffee mortar and poured the beans into it, and that was that.
Once his mind had been turned to the problem, Ali did an adequate job in producing the long-skirted lower garment and the loose woollen abayya that went over it, and the heavy sheepskin-lined coat I would need on cold nights. The sandals he gave me were still thin-soled, but they fit, and the cloth he brought for my headgear was better in hiding long hair than the loose kufjvyah my three companions wore. He even demonstrated how to wrap a turban that looked sloppy but stayed firmly fixed.
I smoothed the skirts of my abayya, wishing I had a mirror, and allowed the men back inside. Mahmoud nodded, Ali scowled, and Holmes checked to see that all the ties and belts were done correctly.
Physically, I would pass as an Arab youth. There was one more difficulty, however.
“Do we still call ‘him’ Mariam?” Ali asked sarcastically. “ ‘Miri’ would be more useful.”
Mahmoud thought about it for a moment, then cast a sly glance at his partner. “Amir.”
Ali burst into laughter, and I had grudgingly to admit that the name was amusing. Mir indicated a relationship with a prince. Ali’s suggested Miri would indicate that I was owned by the state, the property of a prince or commander; in other words, a slave—which, although it might prove accurate, depending on how much drudge labour the men got out of me, was nothing to be proud of. Amir, on the other hand, was far too grand for an itinerant boy, and I could hear already that it would be a source of amusement every time it was pronounced. Still, it seemed that I had little choice in the matter: “Amir” I was, ridiculous or not. Maalesh .
Ali and Mahmoud were anxious to be away—or, Ali was anxious, while Mahmoud firmly dedicated himself to closing up and moving on. We packed away our clothing and the kitchen (the coffee-pots and mortar, one saucepan, the goatskin for water, and a large convex iron pan called a saj for making the flat bread we seemed condemned to live on) and made ready to slip away.
My first sight of Palestine by light of day was of a rain-darkened expanse of rock. The hut was set into a crumbling hillside, its bricks the same dun colour as the surrounding stones; when I glanced back fifty feet away, the structure was all but invisible. I turned my back on our shelter, and set off into the country.
After a mile or two, I asked Holmes if he knew where we were going. I thought perhaps the two Hazrs had a house in Jerusalem or in the foothills, but it seemed that the bulk of their possessions— tents, stores, cooking pots, and mules—had been left with friends some ten miles outside of town. I gaped at Holmes, then at Ali.
“You mean, you don’t have a house?”
“A hair house,” he said, the Arabic name for a tent. “Two, now. And a third mule.”
“We’re to be gipsies? In these shoes?”
“Not gipsies,” Ali corrected me scornfully. “Bedu.”
“For heaven’s sake,” I muttered. “Couldn’t Mycroft afford to get his people a house?”
Mahmoud the silent spoke up, contributing a string of Arabic that could have been a deadly insult or a recipe for scones. I looked to Holmes; he translated.
“He said, ‘Better a wandering dog than a tethered lion.’ ”
“Oh,” I said doubtfully. “Right.”
It looked, then, as if we were to be Bedouin Arabs rather than members of a more settled community. Not, however, the romantic, deep-desert,