The House of the Scissors

by Isobel Chace

  Arab smiled at her. “Don’t you think so? But look at the porcelain bowl! It’s just like the ones we saw in the pillar tomb at Mambrui! And look at these quaint scissors. They must be terribly old. Look at the way the metal has been eaten into by time. I wonder where they were found.”

  “In the House of the Scissors,” Lucien supplied. “Most of the houses are called after something of interest that was found there. The House of the Sunken Court; the House of the Wall; the House of the Iron Lamp; the House of the Venetian Bead; the House of the Ivory Box; the House of the Scissors: those are just a few of them.”

  “But it must have been a huge place!” Arab exclaimed.

  He nodded. “The original town covered an area of some forty-five acres. Not all the houses were built of coral rag, red earth and coral lime. The poorer dwellings would be of mud and wattle, with thatched roofs, and there would be nothing left of them, of course.”

  Hilary, who had been closely examining the scissors in the case in the little museum, looked up at her uncle with a grin. “Tell her about the mystery of Gedi,” she commanded him. “I like to hear about it.”

  “What mystery?” Arab demanded.

  “The mystery,” Lucien explained, “is what the town was doing here in the first place. Why was it built here? It’s about four miles away from the sea and two miles from Mida creek. All the other Arab towns were built right on the sea, or at least on water of some sort. We know that Gedi was not its original name. That was more likely to have been Kilimani. Gedi means ‘precious’ in the Galla language, and it was during the Galla advance from Somalia that the town was sacked. That was in the early seventeenth century.”

  “After the arrival of the Portuguese?”

  “That’s another mystery,” Lucien told her. “The Portuguese never mention Gedi at all. The town was founded in the late thirteenth century, reaching its greatest period in the fifteenth century. It may be that something happened and it was abandoned for a time in the sixteenth century, perhaps it was destroyed by the punitive expedition that was sent against Malindi after they had helped Nuno da Cunha destroy Mombasa in 1529. That would account for it not being mentioned by the Portuguese when they were in Malindi in the second half of that century, because if it was in ruins no one would have paid any attention to it.”

  Arab frowned. “But a lot of those pieces of porcelain are marked as being late sixteenth century,” she objected.

  “It must have been re-settled by then, but not for very long, for in the seventeenth century all the Arab-African settlements between the Juba river in Somalia almost down as far as Mombasa were abandoned and left to fall into ruins. Most of them can still be seen, but this is the only one which is kept as a National Monument.”

  “What happened to the Galla?” Arab asked.

  “They fell into decline in the nineteenth century and were attacked by the Masai and Somali. The Arabs from Lamu, under the protection of Zanzibar, reoccupied the coastal strip, which officially belonged to the Sultan of Zanzibar until Independence. The British had some kind of an arrangement with him.” He grinned suddenly. “A rather one-sided arrangement,” he added dryly.

  Arab thought she knew how the old Sultan had felt. Any arrangement one made with Lucien would be one-sided too, and one would find oneself agreeing to it, even wanting to agree, for no particular reason except he always sounded so reasonable—just like the British! The idea amused her, and she was smiling when Lucien at last pushed both her and Hilary out of the museum and down the path towards the excavated site of the old city.

  The silence was uncanny. Arab found herself listening to it more and more, as they penetrated deeper under the shady trees. No bird sang, no monkey chattered in the trees; it was as if there was no animal life anywhere near the ruined walls of the forgotten town.

  “Why is it so quiet?” Hilary asked in a whisper, slipping her hand into Arab’s. “I can hear my own footsteps!”

  “I don’t know, pet,” Arab admitted. “Is it always like this?” she added to Lucien.

  “Whenever I’ve been here. It’s strange, because it’s so beautiful, with the ruined walls and the arches, and the sun glimpsing through the leaves of the trees, and the warm black earth, but the animals don’t seem to like it.”

  “Not even snakes?” Hilary asked anxiously.

  “I’ve never even seen a snake,” he confirmed. “Are you frightened?”

  “Not frightened,” Hilary denied. “Not exactly frightened, but it is kind of scary, isn’t it?” She held Arab’s hand more tightly than ever. “I shouldn’t like to be here by myself, would you?”

  “Not much,” Arab agreed.

  Lucien laughed. “Beginning to regret your interest in history already?” he teased her.

  “Of course not!” she denied. She wished she had enough courage to put her hand in his as easily as Hilary had clung close to her. She cast a swift look at him and found he was watching her closely, his eyes amused. Supposing, she thought in a panic, supposing he could read her thoughts? She looked away with determination, pretending she hadn’t noticed the way he had raised his eyebrows enquiringly, nor the way he had allowed his eyes to travel over her, not missing a detail of her appearance.

  His smile held nothing but mockery, however, as he held out his hand to her, taking possession of her wrist between his strong, tanned fingers. His touch made her tremble and she concentrated very hard on the path ahead of them.

  “Poor Arab,” he said.

  “Why? Why is she poor?” Hilary chanted, her spirits recovering as they came nearer to the inner wall of the ruins.

  “Because she doesn’t know what she wants,” Lucien answered easily.

  “I know what I want!” Hilary said immediately. “I want to go on a picnic every day. Having Arab with us is almost as good as having Mummy, don’t you think?”

  “Very nearly,” Lucien agreed. “Of course she doesn’t know as much as Ruth, but she’s willing!”

  Arab gasped with fury. She wrenched her wrist away from him, rubbing it automatically as if it were bruised. “I’m not in the least bit willing!” she denied.

  Hilary chuckled, adding insult to injury. “Not willing to go picnicking with us? But you are, Arab! You know you wanted to come!”

  “You’ll never get her to admit as much,” Lucien drawled.

  Arab’s brow cleared. “I’m willing to go for a picnic,” she muttered cautiously. “I thought—”

  Lucien threw her a look of polite enquiry. “Yes?” he prompted her.

  Arab blushed. “It doesn’t matter.” She searched blindly for something, anything that would serve to change the subject. Her eye fell on a large oval tombstone with some writing on it, cut in plaster. “Oh, do look! What’s that?” she asked with such obvious relief that Lucien laughed out loud.

  “Willing for what?” he tormented her.

  She pursed up her mouth with a look that was deliberately provocative. “I’m not willing to be the butt of all your jokes!” She caught the flash in his eyes and retreated into dignity, standing very straight and wishing that she could control the flood of colour that crept up her cheeks. “Wh-what does it say on that tombstone?” she asked him hastily.

  “That,” he told her, still enjoying her discomfiture, “is the Dated Tomb. Look, you can just read the date here: a.d. 802, the equivalent of a.d. 1399. It’s useful because it provides a fixed date from which the other houses can be related.”

  Arab peered at it, glad to have something else to concentrate on. “Why is it in this position? Are there other tombs here?”

  Lucien showed her the Tomb of the Fluted Pillar, going straight on to the Great Mosque, where he picked out the original walls for her to inspect, and gave her a brief idea of what the building had been like. She stood for a long moment beside the mihrab, the niche in the prayer room that tells the faithful which way they should face to be looking towards Mecca. It was the best preserved bit of the Mosque and had once been decorated by the now familiar po
rcelain bowls. Beside it, on the right, stood a pulpit, or minbar, of three steps. Hilary climbed the stairs with a suitably devout expression on her face. A minute later she had collapsed into giggles. “At least you don’t have to take your shoes off here” she said to Arab. “It’s just as well. If you cut your feet on that coral rock, it would never heal!” She hesitated. “Would it, Lucien?”

  “It would take a very long time,” he agreed. “It’s tricky stuff.”

  “There you are!” Hilary exclaimed.

  She jumped down the steps and went running off, climbing over the walls of the nearby palace, pausing only to shout to them over her shoulder that they wouldn’t be able to keep up with her so she would meet them on the other side. Lucien and Arab followed more slowly, going into the palace through the entrance and wandering from courtyard to courtyard until they finally came to the annexe, where Hilary rejoined them.

  “Is this where the women lived?” Hilary asked her uncle.

  “I expect so,” he said. “Where are you going now?”

  Hilary made an expansive gesture with both arms. “About,” she answered. “I want to go and look at some of the other things.”

  Arab watched her as she made her way across the ruins. She felt quite envious of her for her freedom and half thought of following her, rather than being left alone with Lucien. She edged her way out of the palace and walked round the wall, her hands in her pockets, past a pillar tomb, and into a block of houses, where she tried to make out the streets. It was difficult to see what it had been like from ground level, though, so she made her way to one end, climbing up on to one of the walls to see if she could get a better idea from higher up. Lucien came and joined her.

  “Are you all right up there?” he asked. “It’s a long way down!”

  She nodded impatiently. “I can’t tell one house from another,” she complained.

  “I’m in the House of the Cowries.”

  “Cowries? Aren’t they a kind of shell?”

  He nodded. “The kind that you can hear the sea in, if you hold them up to your ear—if they’re big enough. Some of them are tiny. You’re just by the House of the Scissors.”

  Arab looked down at the house below her, trying to imagine what it had been like. Lucien came close to where she was standing. He glanced up at her, shading his eyes from the sun.

  “This house has an interesting well,” he began to tell her. “It shared with the House of the Ivory Box over there. It used to be the dangerous type of well, with the top at ground level, making it easy for the person who was drawing up the water to fall into it. Later it was converted and given a parapet—” He broke off, walking towards her. “Come down,” he commanded, “and I’ll show you.”

  She thought he was going to reach up and help her down and her breath caught in the back of her throat, making it impossible for her to move in any direction. She took a blind leap at what she hoped was a solid ledge of rock, missed her footing, and fell heavily against Lucien, wrenching her foot as she did so. His arms closed tightly about her and his mouth closed on hers in a long, hard kiss. For a breathless moment she tried to wriggle free, aware of a shooting pain in her ankle, but he held her closer still, his lips moving from her mouth to her cheeks, to her eyes, and back again.

  “I’ve wanted to do that ever since I first saw you!” he murmured in her ear. His hands moved over her, caressing her, until her own arms went round the back of his neck and she was kissing him as hard as he was her. Then suddenly she was free. She sat up, pulling nervously at her crumpled shirt.

  “But you can’t have done!”

  He pulled her back into his arms, more gentle than he had been before. “It was those ridiculous jeans,” he told her, then sighed. “It would be easier if you were a little older, my lovely Arab. I feel as though I’m taking advantage of you.”

  She hid her face against him. “How old do I have to be?”

  He touched her face with one finger, marking the line of her jaw and the soft bow of her lips. “Old enough to know your own mind. I feel you’re more kissed against than kissing—”

  “Oh, Lucien!” she exclaimed.

  He kissed her very gently on the lips. “You see,” he said, “you’re not ready yet to have a hectic affair with me, are you?”

  She bit her lip. “Must it be an affair?” she whispered.

  “What else, darling? You’re going back to England in a few days and I shall still be here. I can’t take off until Ruth comes back and reclaims Hilary, and you can’t stay here.”

  “I could come back.”

  His arms tightened about her, crushing her to him. She met his embrace eagerly, overwhelmed by the strength of the emotion he stirred within her and against which she had no defence. All she knew was that she loved him and that this short interlude might be all she would ever have of him. She had never known such delight, nor been filled by such sadness because it would have to end.

  No other man had ever been so close to her and she only gradually became aware of the dangers of her position. She made a soft sound of protest, escaping his searching hands with an effort that cost her dear. Only then did the full extent of the injury to her ankle make itself felt. She tried to stand, but she couldn’t. She fell to her knees with a frightened gasp of agony.

  “I—I’ve hurt my ankle,” she said piteously.

  Immediately he was kneeling beside her, his arm about her waist. “Let me see, darling. Hold on to me!” She was only too glad to do so. Looking down at him, she could see the way his hair grew out of his scalp, and wondered at herself when her heart turned over merely because she was seeing him from a new angle. How could she go back to England, just as if nothing had happened? How could she live without him?

  “I think you’ve broken something in your ankle,” he said at last.

  “But I can’t have done!”

  He stood up, supporting her against him. “Don’t look like that, Arab, or I shall have to kiss you again, and we would be much better employed getting you to the hospital.”

  “You don’t understand!” she agonised. “They might put it in plaster! How can I do my job with a great lump of plaster on one foot?”

  Lucien’s eyes twinkled with silent laughter. “You won’t be able to!” he answered with such scant sympathy that she tried to free herself of his restraining arm, uttering a cry of agony as she set her foot to the ground.

  Arab burst into tears, sobbing her heart out against his chest. “They’ll send me back to England on the first available plane!” she sobbed. “And I’ll never see you again!”

  “Would that be so bad?” he teased her gently.

  Pride forbade her to tell him exactly how awful that would be. “Or Hilary!” she went on quickly. “I like it here, you see, and I like your house. It would be dreadful not to be able to finish the collection against that gorgeous background. Anyone would look terrific with all that carving—and those ceilings! I thought it was going to put me several rungs up the ladder of success!”

  His arms, which had been supporting her in such a satisfactory manner, stiffened and the look of amusement left his face.

  “I suppose that is important to you?”

  She nodded enthusiastically. How could she say that she didn’t care a rap if she never stood in front of a camera again; that she never had cared much, but it had been an escape from a dead-end office job that she had hated. It was only when she had come to Malindi that she had begun to look on her job with new eyes. If it had brought her to such a beautiful place, it was worth everything!

  “I see. I didn’t know that so much ambition burned in your breast. I took you for a simple girl with’ simple tastes—”

  “Dull, unexciting, and easily flattered!” she finished for him.

  His arms fell away from her entirely. She made a desperate effort to gain the support of the wall, letting out a wail of agony as her foot touched the ground.

  “Oh, Lucien!” she wailed. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to help me
!” She turned to face him, aware that she must look a mess, with coral rag dust in her hair and on her face and the traces of tears still on her cheeks and reddening her eyes. “Please, Lucien!”

  “When are you going to be twenty-one, Arab?” he asked in a funny, tight voice.

  “In a couple of weeks.” What had that to do with anything? she asked herself. She would be back in England by then, just as she and her parents had planned. Her mother had refused to pay any attention to the fact that one came of age at eighteen nowadays. Twenty-one was the traditional age, she had informed her daughter roundly. It was the age when a young man had been considered strong enough to bear the weight of full armour and to take on the responsibilities that had gone with it. It was the age when one had lived in the world long enough to have decided the way one was going to live and not have too many ready-made opinions. Arab sniffed. It was to have been a happy, family party and now—But it was best not to think of now. Now was endless ages without even seeing Lucien. It had been bad enough before, but now, after he had kissed her, he had aroused such a storm of emotion that the mere touch of his hand was enough to set her heart hammering and her knees trembling.

  “It isn’t very long to wait,” he said. “Nothing to look so tragic about.”

  “No,” she agreed.

  Lucien sighed and produced his handkerchief again, mopping up her face exactly as though she were the child he thought her. “Blow!” he commanded her. She laughed, taking the handkerchief from him and wiping her face herself.

  “T-twenty-one isn’t quite the same as being eleven!” she stammered.

  He pushed her hair back behind her shoulders and smiled. “I’d noticed,” he said. “I think we’d better get you to the hospital, Arab, before anything worse befalls you.”

  “Nothing worse could!” she mourned. She took another experimental step. “I can’t walk at all! What am I going to do?”

  “I’ll carry you.”

  She blushed. “You can’t. I’m much too heavy for you to—I mean, it’s a long way back to the car.”