Drumbeat by Mohamed El-Bisatie

Author:Mohamed El-Bisatie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
Published: 2010-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

11

That afternoon I took the car out for a drive. Earlier, the women cleaned the villa and prepared dinner to take to the tents. Then they went swimming—we could hear their shouts and laughter from the garage where we were washing the cars. Afterward they sat in front of their quarters combing their wet hair.

The Filipinos informed me that they were not going to the stadium that evening. They had other plans. After a moment, one of them asked, “Why don’t you ask us what our other plans are?”

“Okay, what are your other plans?”

“You know the Grand Café in the old town? The African’s going to be there.”

“Who’s the African?”

He shot a look of amazement at the other two and turned back to me. “You really haven’t heard of him?”

“No.”

“You Egyptians confuse me. Just when I begin to think I understand you, I realize I don’t. Everybody in this town knows who the African is. Everybody from everywhere else. But you, you’re in another world. He’s the only one of the foreign workers in the Emirate who hasn’t been hit by the curse. He’s still healthy.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen him with my own eyes.”

I stopped cleaning the car and turned toward him. “You saw him with your own eyes?”

“Not just me. Lots of others have too. I’m not going to say another word, not after that look you gave me. If you want to see him, you can come with us.”

“I suppose somebody’s asked him how he managed to escape the curse?”

“All he says is that the drums in his head never stop.”

“What country’s he from?”

“Who knows? The jungle. Pouncing beasts. Monkeys in trees. Drums going boom, boom.”

His two colleagues were watching us with grins on their faces. They obviously knew what he was talking about. I promised to meet them at the coffeehouse after evening prayers.

As I drove out of Abu Amer’s villa, I looked up at Abu Salem’s. The balcony was empty. I kept driving.

It was an ordinary working day in the city. The stores were open and the foreign workers in the Emirate were going about their business as usual.

I slowed the car as I passed the police station. I’d heard that the inmates preferred to spend the day outside, sprawled out on the lawn in the back of the jail. I craned my neck toward the trees in the yard there, but from my car window I could only spot a few stretched out legs, dark skinny calves exposed where jallabiyas had ridden up, rubber flip-flops on the ground next to them. The Indian officer in charge was standing in front of my car, hands on his hips. He glanced at me just long enough to check me out and dismiss me.

I parked the car and headed into the market. It was packed, the haggling intense. The vendors here were expert bargainers. The Filipino vendors most of all, and the women were just as tough as the men. I bought a shawl, Iranian bread, and Lebanese mixed nuts, as the Pakistani women back at the villa had asked me to.

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