The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett [150]
The road became a track. Vandam drove across the desert, going as fast as he dared, waiting for instructions from Wolff. Directly ahead, the sun rolled down the edge of the sky. After an hour they passed a small flock of sheep grazing on tufty, sparse camel thorn, guarded by a man and a boy. Wolff sat up in his seat and began to look about him. Soon afterward the road intersected a wadi. Cautiously Vandam let the car roll down the bank of the dried-up river.
Wolff said: “Ruh ashshimalak.”
Vandam turned left. The going was firm. He was astonished to see groups of people, tents and animals in the wadi. It was like a secret community. A mile farther on they saw the explanation: a wellhead.
The mouth of the well was marked by a low circular wall of mud brick. Four roughly dressed tree trunks leaned together over the hole, supporting a crude winding mechanism. Four or five men hauled water continuously, emptying the buckets into four radiating troughs around the wellhead. Camels and women crowded around the troughs.
Vandam drove close to the well. Wolff said: “Andak.” Vandam stopped the car. The desert people were incurious, although it must have been rare for them to see a motor vehicle: perhaps, Vandam thought, their hard lives left them no time to investigate oddities. Wolff was asking questions of one of the men in rapid Arabic. There was a short exchange. The man pointed ahead. Wolff said to Vandam: “Dughri.” Vandam drove on.
At last they came to a large encampment where Wolff made Vandam stop. There were several tents in a cluster, some penned sheep, several hobbled camels and a couple of cooking fires. With a sudden quick movement Wolff reached into the front of the car, switched off the engine and pulled out the key. Without a word he got out.
Ishmael was sitting by the fire, making tea. He looked up and said: “Peace be with you,” as casually as if Wolff had dropped in from the tent next door.
“And with you be health and God’s mercy and blessing,” Wolff replied formally.
“How is thy health?”
“God bless thee; I am well, thank God.” Wolff squatted in the sand
Ishmael handed him a cup. “Take it.”
“God increase thy good fortune,” Wolff said.
“And thy good fortune also.”
Wolff drank the tea. It was hot, sweet and very strong. He remembered how this drink had fortified him during his trek through the desert ... was it only two months ago?
When Wolff had drunk, Ishmael raised his hand to his head and said: “May it agree with thee, sir.”
“God grant it may agree with thee.”
The formalities were done. Ishmael said: “What of your friends?” He nodded toward the taxi, parked in the middle of the wadi, incongruous among the tents and camels.
“They are not friends,” Wolff said.
Ishmael nodded. He was incurious. For all the polite inquiries about one’s health, Wolff thought, the nomads were not really interested in what city people did: their lives were so different as to be incomprehensible.
Wolff said: “You still have my box?”
“Yes.”
Ishmael would say yes, whether he had it or not, Wolff thought; that was the Arab way. Ishmael made no move to fetch the suitcase. He was incapable of hurrying. “Quickly” meant “within the next few days”; “immediately” meant “tomorrow.”
Wolff said: “I must return to the city today.”
“But you will sleep in my tent.”
“Alas, no.”
“Then you will join us in eating.”
“Twice alas. Already the sun is low, and I must be back in the city before night falls.”
Ishmael shook his head sadly, with the look of one who contemplates a hopeless case. “You have come for your box.”
“Yes. Please fetch it, my cousin.”
Ishmael spoke to a man standing behind him, who spoke to a younger man, who told a child to fetch the case. Ishmael offered Wolff a cigarette. Wolff took it out of politeness. Ishmael lit the cigarettes with a twig from the fire. Wolff wondered where