[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
out my leg muscles without causing offence, when Holmes dropped a question
into a brief silence.
My brothers, he asked, frowning in concentration as he rolled up a
cigarette. Do you think the Turk is truly gone from the land?
eight
Ï
Writing is the shaping of letters to represent spoken words which, in turn,
represent what is in the soul.
the Muqaddimah of ibn khaldûn
« ^ »
The question rippled through the tent, silencing the men around the fire. I
could hear the sounds of sleepy children on the other side of the cloth
partition; someone shouted monotonously from the other end of the village.
Holmes ran the tip of his tongue along the edge of the thin cigarette paper,
sealed it, and reached for the tongs to take a coal from the fire. Men began
to speak, in a frustrating jumble of voices.
Some, I thought, protested loyally that Allenby and Feisal had truly driven
the Turk to his knees. Heads nodded, and hands reached for the reassurance of
narghile and cigarette. Some men, though, did not agree. The men of active
fighting age, men whose faces were even more guarded than the average
Bedouin s, quiet men with scars and limps, men who had done more than stand
and shoot at a fleeing enemy, those men did not nod their heads and exclaim
loudly at the cowardice of the Turk. They glanced at each other from under
their eyelids and at Holmes, and they said nothing.
Holmes listened politely to the protestations of freedom, and allowed the
subsequent conversation to drift away into a series of bloodthirsty
reminiscences of wartime ghazis. I did not think, however, that he had missed
the covert glances, and I was not surprised when, a few minutes later, he got
to his feet and left the tent, nor that when he returned he settled down not
into his former spot, but in the midst of three of the men who had been
silent. One of those was Farash, the mukhtar s son.
Reluctantly I had to agree that the questions he was about to put to the men
were best done casually and quietly, so I stayed where I was in the third rank
back from the fire. I looked to see what Mahmoud and Ali would do and saw
that, despite the sour expression on Ali s face, they too planned to stay
where they were and allow Holmes to continue his sub rosa interrogation.
Mahmoud, moreover, tore his eyes from Holmes and turned to the mukhtar.
Perhaps you have a thing you would like me to read? he offered.
The eager look on the mukhtar s old face, and on several others nearby, showed
that they had been hoping for the offer. Three or four men scattered, to
return with precious, tattered journals in hand. The mukhtar sent a rapid-fire
set of instructions at the dividing wall. In an instant, a woman s hand
appeared under the coarse striped fabric, holding out a worn copy of an
English journal called Boy s Own Paper with a dramatic cover showing a troop
of khaki-clad lancers riding furiously towards an unseen enemy. The dubious
expression on the central horse was echoed by its rider, understandable in my
opinion since the men were probably aiming their sharp sticks at an entrenched
position of troops backed by machine guns, but logic has never been a major
element of patriotism. At any rate, the magazine was obviously treasured by
the mukhtar, who put it on top of the half dozen similar literary offerings
Page 54
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
made by the other men, laid on the carpet in front of the scribe and public
reader.
Mahmoud took his time deciding which of the journals and books he would read
from, although I knew the instant I saw a familiar cover emerge from a striped
abayya which he would pick, and I was right. He passed over the Boy s Own and
a Saturday Evening Post, hesitated over an Arabic translation of an American
detecting person named Nick Carter, and finally reached out for the
nine-year-old copy of Strand magazine. This he opened with care, checking that
all the relevant pages were intact, before he settled back on his mound of
bolsters and began to read, not so much translating as paraphrasing and
considerably abridging it as he went. The story Mahmoud chose for the night s
public reading was one that Dr Watson s literary agent, Arthur Conan Doyle,
had called The Devil s Foot. It featured a consulting detective by the name
of Sherlock Holmes.
Mahmoud might have been reading a news article about the peace talks for all
the mischief his face revealed, but I thought Ali would erupt with delight.
Holmes, who had remained bent down to hear whatever was being said in the soft
private conversation, jerked upright at the sound of his real name, badly
startled. Mahmoud read on, stern of visage but with a faint breath of humour
in the depths of his voice. Holmes pulled himself together, shot me a glance
that dared me to laugh, and returned to his talk, safer from interruption now
that the attention of the tent (both sides of it, I thought, hearing the heavy
accumulation of breathing bodies pressing against the divider from the women s
side) was on this rousing tale of greed and revenge and induced madness and
terrible danger. Long before the end of it, Holmes was having difficulty in
keeping his own group s attention, but eventually he sat back, obviously
content with what he had learnt, and allowed them to participate in the
climactic experiment Holmes had so rashly conducted on himself and Watson, the
results of which were very nearly of a sort to which clean death might have
been preferable.
Mahmoud very sensibly cut short the lengthy explanations of motive and method,
simplifying both down to a few lines of dialogue and a dramatic conclusion.
It was a shining success. Much discussion followed, on how one might lay hands
upon this magnificently lethal substance and the sorts of crime its use might
best be suited to punish, and whether or not mere passion for a woman (and an
unobtainable woman at that, for a Christian monogamist) was motive enough.
Eventually, when it became apparent that Mahmoud was not about to pick up Nick
Carter s adventures or the story of the Boy s Own lancers, talk became
sporadic and desultory: one man told his neighbours that his young grandson
had been taken to hospital in Hebron and was not expected to survive the
experience. Another man had a horse gone lame, and asked if anyone had some
remedy for a cracked hoof that had yet to be tried on the creature. Ali made a
casual enquiry about, I thought, banditry in the area, saying that he was
concerned about travelling east of here with such a small group. The responses
varied from an automatic and obviously ignorant reassurance to a disgusted
agreement that no travel was safe in these troubled times. Then he mentioned
the lone corpse found in the Wadi Estemoa, without identifying it by name.
A flurry of speculation sprang up like the last flames of a dying fire, and
the presence of bandits in the hills to the south-east was debated. However,
the hour was late and interest soon died down. Men began to wrap themselves in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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out my leg muscles without causing offence, when Holmes dropped a question
into a brief silence.
My brothers, he asked, frowning in concentration as he rolled up a
cigarette. Do you think the Turk is truly gone from the land?
eight
Ï
Writing is the shaping of letters to represent spoken words which, in turn,
represent what is in the soul.
the Muqaddimah of ibn khaldûn
« ^ »
The question rippled through the tent, silencing the men around the fire. I
could hear the sounds of sleepy children on the other side of the cloth
partition; someone shouted monotonously from the other end of the village.
Holmes ran the tip of his tongue along the edge of the thin cigarette paper,
sealed it, and reached for the tongs to take a coal from the fire. Men began
to speak, in a frustrating jumble of voices.
Some, I thought, protested loyally that Allenby and Feisal had truly driven
the Turk to his knees. Heads nodded, and hands reached for the reassurance of
narghile and cigarette. Some men, though, did not agree. The men of active
fighting age, men whose faces were even more guarded than the average
Bedouin s, quiet men with scars and limps, men who had done more than stand
and shoot at a fleeing enemy, those men did not nod their heads and exclaim
loudly at the cowardice of the Turk. They glanced at each other from under
their eyelids and at Holmes, and they said nothing.
Holmes listened politely to the protestations of freedom, and allowed the
subsequent conversation to drift away into a series of bloodthirsty
reminiscences of wartime ghazis. I did not think, however, that he had missed
the covert glances, and I was not surprised when, a few minutes later, he got
to his feet and left the tent, nor that when he returned he settled down not
into his former spot, but in the midst of three of the men who had been
silent. One of those was Farash, the mukhtar s son.
Reluctantly I had to agree that the questions he was about to put to the men
were best done casually and quietly, so I stayed where I was in the third rank
back from the fire. I looked to see what Mahmoud and Ali would do and saw
that, despite the sour expression on Ali s face, they too planned to stay
where they were and allow Holmes to continue his sub rosa interrogation.
Mahmoud, moreover, tore his eyes from Holmes and turned to the mukhtar.
Perhaps you have a thing you would like me to read? he offered.
The eager look on the mukhtar s old face, and on several others nearby, showed
that they had been hoping for the offer. Three or four men scattered, to
return with precious, tattered journals in hand. The mukhtar sent a rapid-fire
set of instructions at the dividing wall. In an instant, a woman s hand
appeared under the coarse striped fabric, holding out a worn copy of an
English journal called Boy s Own Paper with a dramatic cover showing a troop
of khaki-clad lancers riding furiously towards an unseen enemy. The dubious
expression on the central horse was echoed by its rider, understandable in my
opinion since the men were probably aiming their sharp sticks at an entrenched
position of troops backed by machine guns, but logic has never been a major
element of patriotism. At any rate, the magazine was obviously treasured by
the mukhtar, who put it on top of the half dozen similar literary offerings
Page 54
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
made by the other men, laid on the carpet in front of the scribe and public
reader.
Mahmoud took his time deciding which of the journals and books he would read
from, although I knew the instant I saw a familiar cover emerge from a striped
abayya which he would pick, and I was right. He passed over the Boy s Own and
a Saturday Evening Post, hesitated over an Arabic translation of an American
detecting person named Nick Carter, and finally reached out for the
nine-year-old copy of Strand magazine. This he opened with care, checking that
all the relevant pages were intact, before he settled back on his mound of
bolsters and began to read, not so much translating as paraphrasing and
considerably abridging it as he went. The story Mahmoud chose for the night s
public reading was one that Dr Watson s literary agent, Arthur Conan Doyle,
had called The Devil s Foot. It featured a consulting detective by the name
of Sherlock Holmes.
Mahmoud might have been reading a news article about the peace talks for all
the mischief his face revealed, but I thought Ali would erupt with delight.
Holmes, who had remained bent down to hear whatever was being said in the soft
private conversation, jerked upright at the sound of his real name, badly
startled. Mahmoud read on, stern of visage but with a faint breath of humour
in the depths of his voice. Holmes pulled himself together, shot me a glance
that dared me to laugh, and returned to his talk, safer from interruption now
that the attention of the tent (both sides of it, I thought, hearing the heavy
accumulation of breathing bodies pressing against the divider from the women s
side) was on this rousing tale of greed and revenge and induced madness and
terrible danger. Long before the end of it, Holmes was having difficulty in
keeping his own group s attention, but eventually he sat back, obviously
content with what he had learnt, and allowed them to participate in the
climactic experiment Holmes had so rashly conducted on himself and Watson, the
results of which were very nearly of a sort to which clean death might have
been preferable.
Mahmoud very sensibly cut short the lengthy explanations of motive and method,
simplifying both down to a few lines of dialogue and a dramatic conclusion.
It was a shining success. Much discussion followed, on how one might lay hands
upon this magnificently lethal substance and the sorts of crime its use might
best be suited to punish, and whether or not mere passion for a woman (and an
unobtainable woman at that, for a Christian monogamist) was motive enough.
Eventually, when it became apparent that Mahmoud was not about to pick up Nick
Carter s adventures or the story of the Boy s Own lancers, talk became
sporadic and desultory: one man told his neighbours that his young grandson
had been taken to hospital in Hebron and was not expected to survive the
experience. Another man had a horse gone lame, and asked if anyone had some
remedy for a cracked hoof that had yet to be tried on the creature. Ali made a
casual enquiry about, I thought, banditry in the area, saying that he was
concerned about travelling east of here with such a small group. The responses
varied from an automatic and obviously ignorant reassurance to a disgusted
agreement that no travel was safe in these troubled times. Then he mentioned
the lone corpse found in the Wadi Estemoa, without identifying it by name.
A flurry of speculation sprang up like the last flames of a dying fire, and
the presence of bandits in the hills to the south-east was debated. However,
the hour was late and interest soon died down. Men began to wrap themselves in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]