The House of the Scissors

by Isobel Chace

  “Can you get in by yourself?” he asked her.

  Arab made a half-hearted attempt to do so, wishing she had remembered to change while she had waited for him. “I don’t think I can,” she said.

  He jumped out of the Moke and lifted her bodily into the passenger seat, arranging the foot on a cushion on the running board that went all round the cockpit of the car.

  “The roads are murder,” he warned her. “Shall I go and look for the child by myself?”

  “No, I must go!” she insisted. “Jacques, you don’t think anything bad could have happened to her?”

  “To Hilary? Never!”

  “I wish I could be so sure!” she muttered. “I’m really worried! She hasn’t been seen by anyone since breakfast time. She is only eleven years old!”

  “Is there no one else to worry about her?” Jacques asked in matter-of-fact tones. “What about the uncle?”

  “Lucien is out. So is Hilary’s mother. We all thought she had gone somewhere with her ayah.”

  “I see.” He shrugged. “Very well. Mambrui, here we come!”

  The road, as he had said, was much rougher than she had remembered it. It was one thing to drive along such a road oneself, it was another to be driven. However careful Jacques was, her ankle came in for some rough treatment and, by the time they had crossed the bridge and had started along the worst part of the road to Mambrui, her foot ached abominably.

  Mambrui was practically deserted. A few women sat in the doorways of the houses, but there was no one that Arab felt she could ask if they had seen Hilary. Then, just when she had begun to despair, she saw the old man who had taken such exception to her entering the tomb of their holy man in her shoes. Her first instinct was to hope that he hadn’t seen her, but then she knew that she would have to ask him, for he at least had seen Hilary before. He even spoke a few words of English, though he had been reluctant to use it. She signalled to Jacques to stop the Mini-Moke and, immediately, half a dozen small boys swarmed round them, hoping to collect a few coppers from the strangers. Arab chose one who looked lively and intelligent and asked him to go over to the old man and tell him that she wished to speak to him.

  The old man shook his head, refusing to so much as lift his head. His prayer beads rattled through his fingers in time to the nasal chant of the names of Allah that the old man kept up without pausing. Arab beckoned to the boy to come back to her and spent some time explaining what had happened before and why the old man disliked her.

  “Tell him that I am sorry—that I didn’t know,” she said to the boy. “I was very sorry to offend him—and see, I have been punished for it, because now I have broken my ankle, as he can see for himself!”

  The boy went back to the old man, repeating all she had said in Swahili with a great deal of laughter. Finally, the old man wheezed out a laugh too and stood up, wincing at the pain in his bones as he moved slowly over to the Mini-Moke. He put out a bony hand and poked the plaster on Arab’s foot, cackling with glee at her explanation of her accident.

  “I have not seen the Memsahib Kjana,” he said finally in English. “I know the child. She is fond of stories and I have told her many in the past.” He lifted his head and his eyes met Arab’s briefly. “I will ask at the mosque,” he said.

  Jacques was frankly impatient as they watched the old man creep away down the narrow street, feeling the rough sides of the houses as he went to keep his balance.

  “That’s the last we’ve seen of him!” he grunted. “Shall I go after him?”

  But Arab shook her head. “He will come back. It was courteous of him to come over. Last time I was here, I did a dreadful thing—”

  Jacques grinned at her. “I heard,” he murmured. “How were you to know?”

  “Lucien said I should have found out about local customs before flinging myself into breaching them,” Arab said ruefully.

  “Lucien said! I see Hilary is not the only one to quote the great man!”

  Arab blushed at his teasing. “He was right, though,” she observed, forgetting how cross she had been when he had said it to her.

  “Did you tell him so?” Jacques asked, a wicked glint in his eyes.

  “No,” Arab admitted. “He’s quite conceited enough!”

  The Frenchman chuckled. “There is hope for you yet, Bella, if you can still see that!”

  Arab lifted her chin. “I don’t know what you mean!” she declared.

  Happily she was rescued from his giving her any explanation by the old man coming back towards them, still chanting as the beads slipped through his fingers.

  “She has been seen,” he panted, as he came up to them. “She is not here, but it is thought that she has gone to the Swahili village on the other side of Malindi. It was said in the market place that she has gone to see the witch-doctor—”

  “Alone?”

  The old man’s eyes, blue with blindness, stared dully into hers. “The Kjana is alone. She speaks with the witch-doctor about her friend.”

  Arab gasped, blushing fiercely. “About me?”

  The old man patted her plaster cast, neighing with silent laughter, and then tottered off down the street, collapsing into the nearest doorway. His grizzled hair had been cut so short that his black scalp gleamed in the sunlight, damp from the effort he had made. Arab wondered how old he was. She thought he must be a great age and she was glad that they were no longer enemies.

  “Do you know this village?” she asked Jacques.

  He gave her an odd look. “Do you intend to go there?” he countered. “It sounds to me as though Hilary knows what she’s doing. She won’t come to any harm!”

  Arab looked stubborn. “She might!” She threaded her fingers together nervously. “I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to her!”

  Jacques shook his head at her. “She’s not your responsibility, Bella!”

  “I think she is!”

  He shrugged his shoulders with a Gallic gesture. “My dear, have you thought what you are doing? You are too beautiful to give up your work, did you know that? As a model, you have prestige, and dresses like the one you wore to the dance—” He broke off, annoyed to see that she was laughing at him. “Well? What is so funny?”

  “You are!” she giggled. “You don’t know anything about being a model!”

  “It brought you out here—to me!”

  “Not to you!” Arab frowned. “And this was the best thing that’s happened to me. Mostly, it’s nothing but changing clothes, rushing round in taxis in a constant fever in case one is late for an appointment, and talking clothes, clothes, clothes, until you wish they’d never been invented! If it isn’t clothes, it’s dieting, because most of us have to worry about our figures all the time too. At the end of a day, I could often scream with boredom!”

  “I don’t believe you! Why did you become a model if this is true?”

  Arab grinned. “Because being a shorthand-typist was worse, or so I thought. Recently, since coming out here, I’ve begun to wonder if I’m really cut out for the independent, liberated life, but there isn’t much choice in the end, is there?”

  Jacques looked serious. “Cherie, let’s leave Hilary to her own devices! Come with me, and I shall persuade you that you will find happiness with me. I earn very good money, I assure you! There would be no need for you to work any more. All you would have to be is my golden goddess, and I should adore you, no?”

  Arab wriggled uncomfortably. “But I’m not a golden goddess,” she objected.

  “Today, you are my Cinderella, full of family worries that are nothing to do with you! But we wave a wand, and you are dressed for the Ball. I have seen you when you are beautiful! You must not forget that!”

  “That’s not the real me,” she said. She was irresistibly reminded of the time when Lucien had kissed her in the House of the Scissors. He had said it was her ridiculous jeans that had first made him want to kiss her. He hadn’t required the glamour of a golden dress! Tears started into her eyes. If on
ly it were he and not Jacques who was beside her now!

  “It’s real enough for me!”

  “Please don’t!” Arab said abruptly.

  “But, Bella, it is silly for you to cry for the moon when the stars are all yours for the taking!”

  “I don’t happen to want any stars!”

  “Did you dislike my kisses so much?”

  Arab nodded, chewing at her lower lip. “I’m sorry, Jacques.”

  He spread his hands out before him. “I am a very stubborn man,” he warned her. “You will grow to like my kisses.”

  “No, I won’t. Please, Jacques, don’t go on about it! You don’t know me at all, and I don’t think you would like me very much if you did. I’m just ordinary me and I don’t want to be anybody else.” She shifted her foot with immense care. “Certainly not Madame Jacques Bouyer!” she added.

  “How about Mrs. Lucien Manners?” he drawled.

  Arab winced. “Lucien isn’t looking for a wife,” she answered. “And I don’t think I should be very happy with anything else.” She laughed shortly. “I shall get over it—I hope!” Arab shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  “But not with me?”

  She was dismayed to see the tightness about Jacques’ mouth and she wished that she hadn’t had to refuse him. Jill had said he was looking for a flirtation, but he had wanted a wife after all. What a pity she couldn’t feel the same way about him! How simple everything would be, if she could only have fallen in love with Jacques Bouyer! She waited for him to start the engine, but he sat in the driving seat with his hands on the wheel, making no effort to move. After a while Arab became restive. She tried a light laugh that didn’t quite come off. “Hadn’t we better be going?” she said.

  Jacques gave her an angry look. “I wouldn’t have come if it was only a chauffeur you were wanting!” he said sourly. “If you want me to drive you around, you’ll have to pay me for it.”

  “Pay you?” Arab exclaimed. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “You know very well, ma mie. Shall we say a kiss a mile? Or I shall leave you here to get home by yourself!”

  Arab controlled her temper with difficulty. “Don’t be ridiculous! I have to be at the airport at five!”

  “You should have thought of that before!” Jacques mocked her with a cruel twist to his mouth.

  Arab took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “A kiss a mile it is. Now let’s get going. I’m worried about Hilary and I want to get to her as quickly as possible!” She noted the surprised look on Jacques’ face, followed by a quick gleam of triumph. “I had not expected you to be so—amenable,” he murmured. “Perhaps I need not have offered you marriage after all?”

  Arab only grunted. She was busy thinking about how she was going to get out of paying him. It should be easy enough, she decided. She would put him off until they arrived at the airport and then there would be too many people around for it to matter!

  “Please, let’s go!”

  Reluctantly, Jacques turned the ignition key and backed the Mini-Moke towards the sea, roaring the engine as he changed gear and sped through the narrow streets, scattering people and animals in all directions with a lack of concern for others that jarred harshly on Arab’s nerves.

  By the time they arrived at the Swahili village, Arab could only think of one thing: the gnawing pain in her ankle that was growing steadily by the minute. Jacques parked the Mini-Moke in the shade of a tree and she sat there, without moving, for a long moment, hoping that the pain was going to subside. It soon became obvious that it was there to stay. The sweat formed in drops on her face and her clothes felt tight and damp.

  “Will you help me out, please,” she asked Jacques. He lifted her out of her seat and set her down on her feet.

  “I think I’ll take the first instalment of my payment now,” he began.

  Arab pulled herself away from him. “I’m too hot and sticky!” She looked about her. “Have you ever been here before?”

  “What for?” Jacques countered cautiously.

  Arab glanced at him sharply, She knew quite certainly that he had been to the village before and that he didn’t want to tell her about it. Oh well, she thought, it was none of her business what he did! But it gave her an uncomfortable feeling that she didn’t know Jacques as well as she thought she had. She turned away from him, idly watching a bevy of small children who had gathered about the car.

  “Tour, memsahib? Tour of village? I best guide!”

  Arab’s eyes met those of a small boy and she pointed to him. “Jambo,” she said to him, pleased with her one word of Swahili.

  “Jambo, memsahib. You want to see the village?”

  Arab nodded. “I’m looking for a girl who might have come here today. Have you seen her?”

  The boy’s head fell forward and he shuffled his feet in the dust, pretending not to have understood her. Arab sighed. There was nothing for it, she thought, but to make the tour of the village and hope to see Hilary on the way.

  “She’s eleven years old,” she said slowly and clearly, in case the boy hadn’t understood her. “She has yellow hair,” she added.

  The boy looked up, his eyes wide. “Tour, memsahib?”

  Arab looked over her shoulder at Jacques. He had got back into the Mini-Moke and had pulled out a paperback which he was studying with interest. Arab felt quite exasperated. It would have been easy enough for him to have made the tour of the village, whereas she wasn’t sure that she would be able to walk that far.

  “Are you coming?” she asked Jacques.

  “No,” he replied.

  Her guide was surprisingly helpful. He told her to stand still where she was and, in a few seconds he was back with a stout walking stick in his hand. With the help of the stick and the boy’s shoulder, Arab found she could swing along fairly well. She might even have enjoyed it had it not been for the nagging ache in her foot which obstinately refused to go away.

  Everybody in the village was friendly. There was the sound of laughter echoing round the trees and there were no suspicious eyes watching everything she did such as she had noticed at Mambrui. Her guide showed her the cashew trees, where small boys hurried to pick the nuts and toast them over mangrove charcoal, urging her to try them. He pointed out the cups at the top of the palm trees to catch the palm juice that is the basis of the tembo drink that they all drank with relish whenever they could.

  “Have you a witch-doctor here?” Arab asked her guide.

  He nodded eagerly. “Yes, memsahib. Very powerful man!”

  “I’d like to see him,” she said.

  The boy looked upset. “This village is famous for dancing,” he trotted out. “We make very good drums. I show you?”

  Arab agreed that she would like to see the drums. Everybody, it appeared, could play them in the village. Their four fingers and the ball of their palms became a blur as they beat out the intricate rhythms on the skins pulled tight over various hollowed-out pieces of wood.

  “You try,” the boy urged her.

  She did so, but she wasn’t very good at it. If she concentrated hard, she could beat out a simple melody, but the counter-beat was beyond her, and the giggles that her attempts to do better produced made her nervous.

  “I want to see the witch-doctor,” she repeated.

  A woman who was nursing her baby nearby called out something to the boy at her side. “That is my mother,” he told her. “She is one of the wives of the witch-doctor. She will take you to him.”

  The woman got to her feet with unconscious grace. She handed the baby over to his brother, rearranging the single sheet of material that she wore round her hips. When she smiled, Arab was astonished to see that she had perfect teeth and that her tongue darted in and out of her mouth every time she laughed, which was often. She beckoned to Arab to follow her, pausing every now and then to allow Arab to keep pace with her.

  She led the way across the main compound of the village towards a hut that was a
little larger than any of the others. With a gesture, she bade Arab wait outside while she drew back the curtain in the doorway and, ducking her head, entered into the gloomy interior.

  Arab eased her foot into a more comfortable position, leaning heavily on the walking-stick. She felt quite sick with pain and her head ached. She hoped it was not a recurrence of malaria and put the thought away from her quickly in case it should be true. A goat came round the side of the hut and stood, stock-still, trying to make its mind up if she were an enemy to be butted or a friend to be ignored. Arab whistled to it through her teeth, hoping for the best, and the beast went slowly away, pausing only to take a mouthful of cloth that was hanging from a piece of string from another hut nearby.

  Arab blinked at the sun and tried to move into the shade. The curtain twitched beside her and Hilary came rushing out.

  “Arab! I’m so glad you came! I didn’t see how you could! It was easy getting here, but I couldn’t imagine how I was going to get home. But I got it! And he promises that it works—really it does! And it isn’t poisonous, because I’ve tried a little of it myself and I’m still alive. It cost five whole shillings!”

  Arab tripped over her walking-stick and fell heavily to the ground.

  “What cost five shillings?”

  Hilary flung herself on to her knees beside her, pulling the stick out from beneath her.

  “The love potion!” she said.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “A love potion?” Arab repeated. “Whatever for?”

  Hilary helped her to her feet, frowning with concentration. “Mummy gave me the idea,” she said. “You know, at breakfast this morning. I think it’s a very good idea, don’t you?”

  Arab balanced herself with difficulty against the wall of the hut. If her jeans had been disreputable before, they were now in a very sad state indeed.

  “It seems plain daft to me!” she said shortly.

  “But it isn’t, Arab!” Hilary looked hurt. “I got it for you,” she explained. “I thought you’d stay with us for ever then.”