The Year of Rice and Salt

She tiptoed to the street and looked towards the tram stop. Her heart was thumping hard now, and she was hot in the chill air. She could take the tram or walk straight down the narrow streets, so steep that in several places they were staired. She was sure Idelba was off to the railway station, and if she was wrong, she could give up the chase.

Even wearing a veil it was too early for a girl from a good family to be on the tram alone; indeed, it was always too early for a respectable girl to be out alone. So she hustled over to the top of the first stair alley, and began hurrying down the weaving course, through courtyard, park, alley, the stair of the roses, the tunnel made by Japanese fire maples, down and down the familiar way to the old town and the bridge crossing the river to the railway station. Onto the bridge, where she looked upstream to the patch of sky between old stone buildings, its blue arched over the pink hem of the little bit of mountains visible, an embroidery dropped into the far end of the lake.

She was losing her resolve when she saw Idelba in the station, reading the schedule for track listings. Budur ducked behind a streetlight post, ran around the building into the doors on the other side, and likewise read a schedule. The first train for Nsara was on Track 16, at the far side of the station, leaving at five sharp, which had to be close. She checked the clock hanging over the row of trains, under the roof of the big shed; five minutes to spare. She slipped onto the last car of the train.

The train jerked slightly and was off. Budur moved forwards up the train, car to car, holding onto the seat backs, her heart knocking faster and faster. What was she going to say to Idelba? And what if Idelba was not on the train, and Budur off to Nsara on her own, with no money?

But there Idelba sat, hunched over, looking forwards out of the window. Budur steeled herself and burst through the compartment door and rushed to her weeping, threw herself on her, 'I'm sorry, Aunt Idelba, I didn't know you were going this far, I only followed to keep you company, I hope you have money to pay for my ticket too?'

'Oh name of Allah!' Idelba was shocked; then furious; mostly at herself, Budur judged through her tears, though she took it out for a little while on Budur, saying, 'This is important business I'm on, this is no girl's prank! Oh, what will happen? What will happen? I should send you right back on the next train!'

Budur only shook her head and wept some more.

The train clicked quickly over the tracks, through country that was rather bland; hill and farm, hill and farm, flat woods and pastures, all clicking by at an enormous speed, it almost made ber sick to look out of the window, though she had ridden in trains all her life, and had looked out before at the view without feeling anything.

At the end of a long day the train entered the bleak outskirts of a city, like Downbrook only bigger, li after li of apartment blocks and close set houses behind their walls, bazaars full of people, neighbourhood mosques and bigger buildings of various kinds; then really big buildings, a whole knot of them flanking the many bridged river, just before it opened out into the estuary, now a giant harbour, protected by a jetty that was broad enough to hold a street on it, with businesses on both sides.

The train took them right to the heart of this district of tall buildings, where a station, glass roofed and grimy, let them out onto a broad treelined street, a two-parted street divided by huge oaks planted in a line down a centre island. They were a few blocks from the docks and the jetty. It smelled fishy.

A broad esplanade ran along the riverbank, backed by a row of redleaved trees. Idelba walked quickly down this corniche, like Turi's lakeside corniche only much grander, until she turned onto a narrow street lined with three storey apartment blocks, their first floors occupied by restaurants and shops. Up some stairs into one of these buildings, then into a doorway with three doors. Idelba rang the bell for the middle one, and the door opened and they were welcomed into an apartment like an old palace fallen apart.

TWO

Not an old palace, it turned out, but an old museum. No room in it was very big or impressive, but there were a lot of them. False ceilings, open ceilings and abrupt cuts in wall paintings and wainscoting patterns made it clear that bigger rooms had been divided and subdivided. Most of the rooms held more than one bed or cot, and the huge kitchen was crowded with women making a meal or waiting to eat it. They were thin women, for the most part. It was noisy with talk and stove fans. 'What is this?' Budur asked Idelba under the hubbub.