Song of the Nile by Fielding Hannah

Author:Fielding, Hannah
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: London Wall Publishing
Published: 2021-08-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Cairo was humming like a great beehive beneath the clear blue sky. Aida and Phares crossed the thoroughly Europeanised west part of the city with its broad streets shaded by lebbek trees, and rows of great hotels, smart boutiques, churches, clubs and residences of the rich, where bougainvillea clambered in purple magnificence over porticoes. Dodging around the modern bulk of the opera house and the Turf Club, they skirted the Ezbekiyeh Gardens and, crossing the square where the various tram lines of the city met, they entered the real Cairo, the African Cairo, a totally new world which led to the bazaars and the Musky, or the Khan Khalili as it was known to Egyptians.

No more broad streets, no more fine buildings. It was one vast huddle of old structures, some of them rather fine examples of the architecture that prevailed in Cairo when the merchants were kings. Into the mass of close-packed houses was threaded a network of numberless deep, dark alleys and narrow lanes overhung with the pretty, wiry balconies of harems, almost meeting above the jostling crowds. They appeared secretive and mysterious; Aida wondered what lay behind them, her imagination conjuring up all sorts of romantic images.

The red tarbooshes and coloured turbans of the natives in a variety of costumes formed a bobbing sea on either side of the road lined with a brilliant assortment of sweetmeat shops, fabric stores and fruit sellers. Through the car’s open window, Aida watched the bright multitude thronging the streets in a motley picture of such effective colour schemes that never failed to enchant her eye. Her ears, too, were enthralled by the street cries and passing music, and the wailing prayers from the top of the tall minarets.

The old Turk who was setting up his cake stall in the recess of a sculpted doorway; the donkey-boy with his colourful caparisoned animal, waiting for customers; the beggar asleep on the steps of the mosque; the veiled woman filling her water jar at the public fountain – they all looked as if they had been put there expressly to be painted.

Phares parked the car in a side street not too far away from the main drag of the bazaar and he and Aida wended their way along the tortuous pavements lined with shops offering semi-precious stone necklaces arrayed in glittering splendour against a black background, stalls with engraved brasswork, and others that offered pearl inlayed items and mashrabiya carved woodwork.

At this time of day, the well-trodden route leading to the Musky was teaming with life. The sun was blazing, the sky an unbroken arc of blue, and there was a quality of magic in the atmosphere. Crowds were drifting to and fro, on and off the pavements, chattering and laughing in that happy-go-lucky way that Aida loved so much about the Egyptian people.

A man carrying on his head a tray of sugar plums and sweetmeat made of parched peas and sugar was singing rhythmically, ‘Mulabesseyeh! Homasseyeh!’ Another cried, ‘Figs, the food

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